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4 






































/ 


/ • 


THE 


I U O N 


ANUFACTURER’S guide 


TO THE 


furnaces, forges and rolling mills 





of 


THE UNITED STATES 


WITH 


DISCUSSIONS of IRO 


N 


AS 


AL ELEMENT - AN AMERICAN ORE, AND A MANUFACTTTRirrs 
ARTICLE, IN COMMERCE AND IN HISTORY. 




BY J- P- LESLEY 


-RETARY OF THE AMERICAN IRON 


ASSOCIATION, 


AND 


PUBLISHED BY AUTHOSITY OF THE SAME. 






with maps and plat 


E S. 


/ 

/ 




NEW YORK: 

•JOHN WILEY, PUBLISHER. 

LONDONTRUBNER A CO. 

1866. 

c/ 









V 


Esterbd, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 
J. P. LESLEY, Sec. A. I. A., 

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 






W. H. Tinson, Printer and Stereotyper, 
43 & 45 Centre St., N. Y. 


















V. 


V", 





' -C - ' 


.0 > 



'i 






• t 
• _ 


THE IRON MANUFACTURER’S GUIDE. 























•» 















avaS^a 

t Yj f.i o v vyi S 0 na [lovcq 

afJLvrjfJiovi [xr]<iroTS 
a//VJfOTJ 







TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

ii * 


r 16 . >EX TO THE DIRECTORY. 

H EX TO THE PERSONAL NAMES in the Directory. 

116 . - 

• PART I.—Directory to Iron Works. 

'■ 1 * URNACES..pages 1-146 

u£ * FORGES.147-218 

‘ r ' ; ROLLING MILLS.219-263 

?r _ 

PART II.—Guide to the Ores. 

DIVISION I.—Iron as a Chemical Element. 

PAGB 

' IE PLACE OF IRON IN THE ORDER OF THE ELEMENTS.264 

ETEORIC iron.266 

ATIVE iron.266 

Iron and OXYGEN; Protoxide ; Peroxide.267 

“ crystallized; uncrystallized.270 

“ hydrated; anhydrous. 271-274 

“ Proto-peroxide.275 

Iron and CHLORINE.276 

Iron and BROMINE. 277 

Iron and IODINE.277 

Iron and FLUORINE. 278 

Iron and CARBON.278 

graphite; pig metal; grey iron ; white iron; steel.279 

Iron, Oxygen and CARBON.282 

Crystallized, sparry, spathic iron.283 

with magnesia, etc.284 

Uncrystallized, clay ironstone, etc.285 

analyses.287 

black-band.289 

hydrous carbonate, brown spar.’..290 

Iron and BORON. 290 

Iron and SILICON.(331) 290 

Iron and PHOSPHORUS.293 

phosphorus makes iron cold-short....296 

Iron, Carbon and Phosphorus.297 

Iron and SULPHUR.(331) 298 

protosulphuret; magnetic pyrites.299 

persulphuret; iron pyrites.301 

white iron pyrites.302 

Iron and sulphuric acid.302 

Ir . . rt f»rbon and sulphur.304 







































X1Y 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAM 

Iron and SELENIUM, TELLURIUM...306 

“ ARSENIC ; with sulphur...*... 306-309 

“ ANTIMONY. 309 

“ CHROME . 310 

“ MOLYBDENUM, TUNGSTEN, COLUMBIUM OR TANTALUM.311 

“ TITANIUM... 311 

“ VANADIUM... 313 

“ AMMONIUM. 313 

“ POTASSIUM........(331) 313 

“ LITHIUM, BARIUM, STRONTIUM. 314 

“ CALCIUM. 314 

“ MAGNESIUM.. . *15 

“ ALUMINIUM.....(331) §15 

“ GLUCINUM, YTTRIUM, CERIUM, ZIRCONIUM, THORIUM.317 

“ MANGANESE...... 317 

“ NICKEL. 320 

“ COBALT.321 

“ ZINC.......(332) 322 

“ LEAD.... .....325 

“ TIN .. 325 

“ BISMUTH .. 326 

“ COPPER.... . 326 

“ MERCURY. 328 

“ SILVER .. 329 

“ URANIUM, PALLADIUM, TANTALUM, CADMIUM ...330 

Steel and IRIDIUM, RHODIUM, OSMIUM ..330 

Iron and GOLD.. 330 

“ PLATINUM. 330 

DIVISION II.—Iron as an Ore in the United States. 

INTRODUCTION. 333 

Classification of ores. 333 

Metamorphic action. 333 

North America divisible into geological regions...336 

Scheme of formations, English and American...337 

New York nomenclature.338 

Primary, Subsilurian, Huronian rocks ... 338 

The Appalachian region subdivided..... 339 

METEORIC IRON. 341 

Shephard’s list of meteorites...... 341 

Karsten “ uber feuer-meteore,” etc....343 

Native iron in Labrador, A/rica, Texas, etc. etc...347 

Meteoric iron ; n the V.-Aed States.361 

Meteoric iron, ict;>e and passive. 352 

CHAPTER I.—THE PRIMARY IRON ORES... .353 

Five theories of origin ..363 

Difference between veins and beds...364 

Whitney on the primary ores.365 

Asserted instances of eruptive iron; Siberia; Elba.358 

















































TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV 

PACK 

Iron in lava.361 

Bischof’s views; metamorphosis; iron from augite.361 

Hunt on the sedimentary origin of primary ores.366 

Fuchs’ views.366 

Hausmann on crystals formed in furnace hearths.367 

Hayes’ and Jackson’s views.367 

Sanarmont’s crystals got in the humid way.368 

Metamorphosis of guano into trachyte.370 

Carbonate of iron the possible original form of the primary ores.371 

Hydrous peroxide of iron.374 

Emmons’ views; Taconic system; metamorphism.376 

Chromic iron and serpentine ; trap dykes. 379 

GEOGRAPHY OF THE PRIMARY ORES.379 

NOVA SCOTIA.379 

MAINE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.384 

VERMONT.385 

MASSACHUSETTS.386 

NORTHERN NEW YORK, Essex and Clinton counties.386 

Saratoga and Washington counties.391 

Essex and Clinton counties.v.392 

Franklin county.396 

St. Lawrence county.897 

Ore banks used by the various furnaces in N. N. York.400 

SOUTHERN NEW YORK, Putnam, Orange, Westchester.401 

Highlands.402 

Orange and Rockland counties.408 

Ore banks used by the furnaces, etc.414 

NORTHERN NEW JERSEY; Kitchell’s report.(555, 431) 415 

Rogers’ report.419 

Franklinite ore. 421 

Andover ores.427 

Ore banks used by the iron works. .... 431 

EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA, Easton Hills, and South Mountain... (490) 433 

Warwick and Cornwall mines...(561, 495) 438 

SOUTHERN PENNSYLVANIA, Chrome ores; serpentine.439 

titaniferous ore.....443 

MARYLAND .444 

VIRGINIA..... . .445 

NORTH CAROLINA, Emmons’ first belts.446 

second belt... *.449 

third....451 

SOUTH CAROLINA ; Tuomey’s reports.452 

Lieber’s section; itabirite, etc.. 455 

EAST TENNESSEE ; Ducktown veins.458 

Ansted’s report.460 

GEORGIA.. Hodge’s reports. 462 

MISSOURI.Iron mountain, etc.471 

Swallow’s reports.475 

WISCONSIN.Owen’s report. 476 





















































XVI 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PACK 

Rivot’s views; analysis.481 

Foster and Whitney’s reports.482 

CANADA.Logan and Hunt.489 

PENNSYLVANIA.Rogers’ Final Report.490 

CHAPTER II.—THE BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 

Biscliof’s views of metamorphosis .601 

Volger’s specimen from the Zurich Cabinet .503 

Specular ore always from red hematite.506 

Sulphurets and brown hematites. 507 

Bischof on pyrites.609 

Sulphurets and carbonates. 512 

Rogers’ views of the brown ore deposits of the Great Valley.513 

Whitney, Hitchcock, Hodge.514 

The brown hematites not of tertiary age.516 

THE PALyEOZOIC SYSTEM.618 

The elements of the mountain form synclinal and anticlinal.621 

The first great sandrock, I, Lower Silurian.524 

The second “ IV, Upper Silurian.525 

The third “ X, Devonian.529 

The fourth “ XII, Carboniferous.532 

GEOGRAPHY OF THE LOWER SILURIAN brown hematites H. 534 

NEW BRUNSWICK. 535 

VERMONT.537 

MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT.544 

EASTERN NEW YORK.648 

NORTHERN NEW JERSEY.552 

EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA, gneissic region.657 

Warwick and Cornwall mines.561 

Durham hills and South Mountain mines .567 

MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA, west of the Susquehanna.577 

Kishicoquilis, Nittany and other valleys.581 

MARYLAND.587 

VIRGINIA.589 

CAROLINAS AND GEORGIA.592 

ALABAMA. 595 

MISSOURI.596 

GEOGRAPHY OF THE UPPER SILURIAN brown hematites VI, VII 599 
GEOGRAPHY OF THE SUB-CARBONIFEROUS brown hematites 

XI.601 

WESTERN TENNESSEE AND KENTUCKY.602 

Dr. Peter’s analyses of Kentucky limonites.609 


CHAPTER III.—THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 

GEOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION ; extent and cause of the deposit 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 

NEW YORK; Vanuxem’s, Hall’s reports. 

PENNSYLVANIA; southern outcrop. 

Danville, Bloomsburg, Montour’s ridge. 

Rogers’ subdivisions of the group. 


611 

613 

616 

617 

617 

















































TABLE OF CONTENTS. Xvii 

PAOR 

Estimates of quantity, etc. 619 

Analyses of various specimens.622 

West of the Susquehanna; Huntingdon, etc.622 

Alleghany Mountain outcrop, Williamsburgh, etc.627 

Little Juniata, Bedford.628 

VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE AND ALABAMA.630 

OHIO, EASTERN KENTUCKY.631 

WISCONSIN.632 


CHAPTER IV.—THE CARBONATE ORES. 

Theory of genesis from carbonate of lime ; Sorby.634 

Theory of genesis from peroxide of iron; Rogers.635 

Objections to the theory.639 

Riviere’s experiments with leaking gaspipes.640 

Theory of genesis from volcanic vapors. 641 

Theory of genesis from carbonated river waters.641 

Dr. Hayes on submarine shore springs.642 

Nodular ore forms; C. T. Jackson.643 

Peroxidation of the outcrops.647 

Action of silicic acid; Volger.648 

Magnetic ore in the coal measures .649 

GEOLOGICO-GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 

Roxbury spathic ore of Connecticut...649 

Ore of VIII, Lower Devonian black slates. .650 

NEW YORK.651 

- PENNSYLVANIA.651 

VIRGINIA.655 

OHIO AND KENTUCKY.655 

Ore of VIII, Devonian olive slates.658 

NORTHERN PENNSYLVANIA.659 

Ore of XI, sub-carboniferous red shales.660 

CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA; base of XI .660 

Analyses of ore of XI in Pennsylvania.661 

EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA ; top of XI.662 

NORTHERN PENNSYLVANIA; Blossburg..665 

Towanda, Ralston, Farrandsville, etc.666 

NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA.668 

SOUTHERN PENNSYLVANIA; Cambria, Somerset, etc.669 

MIDDLE VIRGINIA.672 

WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA .672 

EASTERN KENTUCKY.673 

WESTERN KENTUCKY sub-carboniferous. 676 

Ore of XII, XIII, coal measures proper.678 

Lower coal measures.680 

Lower barren measures.681 

Upper coal measures.682 

Anthracite region, Vertical sections exhibiting the series.683 

Ores of the ANTHRACITE Pottsville basin ; Rogers.685 

Northern bituminous basins. 687 





l 























































XVI11 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGB 


Broad Top basin.688 

SOUTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA; Johnstown.688 

MARYLAND.690 

NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA; Black-band.692 

Ores of the Lower coal measures ; over coal B.693 

“ over the Tionista sandstone.694 

Buhrstone ore in Pennsylvania.695 

“ beneath the Ferriferous (buhrstone) limestone.69*7 

“ above the buhrstone.699 

EASTERN OHIO.699 

Buhrstone ore in Ohio.703 

SOUTHERN OHIO. 705 

EASTERN KENTUCKY.707 

WESTERN KENTUCKY.719 

INDIANA AND ILLINOIS.723 

IOWA, MISSOURI.724 

Ores of the Upper coal measures.724 

SOUTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA.725 

Permian ore.727 

Ore of the Tertiarv age.729 

CHAPTER V.—THE BOG ORES. 

Origin—in peat bogs, .age. 731 

Primary outcrop bog ore.734 

Silurian outcrop bog ore .734 

Devonian outcrop bog ore.734 

SOUTHERN OHIO.735 

Carboniferous bog ore of XI and XIII.735 

Cretaceous and Tertiary outcrop bog ore.737 

MASSACHUSETTS.737 

NEW JERSEY.738 

DELAWARE. 740 

VIRGINIA.741 


DIVISION HI.—Chapters I, II, HI. .743 


DIVISION IV.—Chapters I, II, HI, IV.744 

Summary of statistics by J. P. Lesley.745 

Summary of statistics by C. E. Smith.769 

Duties, importations and £ price of iron in Liverpool under the different 

tariffs by C. E. Smith.766 


Chap. V.—The democratic principles involved in and illustrated by the 


iron manufacture.767 

Managers of the American Iron Association for 1859.. 768 

Constitution of the American Iron Association.769 













































INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY 




S? 

< 5 * 


I 

o* 

$ 


NAME. 

A 


I 3S4 Abram's Greek forge 

C 9 Ackworth forge. 

K 626 5 Adirondack furnace . 

K 598 JEtna furnace.. 

F 51.4 AEtna forge . 

D 14 Agawam R. M. 

I 366 Athens's forge . 

H 469 Akron furnace . 

D 30 Albany R. M. 

K 549 Alexander’s furnace ., 

I 368 Alexander’s forge. 

C 2.5 Alger’s forge. 

I 313 Aliculsie forge . 

I 310 Allatoona forge . 

H 245 Allatoona furnace 

E 136 Alleghany furnace .... 

H 367 Alleghany furnace .. 

F 192 Alleghany forge. 

J 212 Allen R. M.. 

I 374 Allen's forge .... 

A 29 Allentown furnace.. . 

K 638 Alpina furnace. 

H 529 Amanda furnace. 

II 257 Amanda furnace .... 

B 32 Amenia furnace. 

D 21 American R. M. 

H 366 American furnace 

J 150 American R. M. 

I 321 Amerine forge. 

I 382 Amerine forge. 

C 16 Ames’s forge. 

H 296 Anna furnace. 

H 436 Annandale furnace . 

C 8.5 Ansonia forge. 

F 183 Antes forge . 

E 102 Antietam furnace .... 


G 126 Antietam R. M. 

K 5S4 Antonio furnace 
II 467.2 Arcole furnace 
H 526 Argolite furnace .. 

I 470 Argolite forge _ 

H 264 Ariel furnace _ 

I 489 Arkansas forge. 

I 195 Armory forge. 

G 129 Armory R. M. 

F 147 Ashland forge. 

H 352 Ashland furnace .. 
A 119 Ashland furnace.... 
K 576 Ashland furnace ... 
H 854 Astonville furnace . 
E 149.3 Atsion furnace .... 

I 429 Au Sable forge_ 

F 25.4 Augusta forge . 

H 209 Australia furnace... 
G 129 Avalon R. M. 


Page 
,. 202 
. 149 
. 141 
. 136 
. 156 
. 222 
. 200 
. 112 
. 225 
. 127 
. 200 
. 147 
. 193 
. 193 
. 76 
. 59 
. 95 
. 178 
. 260 
. 201 
. 7 

. 144 
. 123 
. 79 
. 32 
. 223 
. 95 
. 247 
. 194 
. 202 
. 150 
. 85 
. 105 
. 148 
. 176 
. 50 

243 
. 134 
. Ill 

, 123 
214 
SO 
216 
178 

244 
171 

93 

24 

133 

93 

62 

208 

151 

71 

243 


3 1 

NAME. 


? § 

R 


: ^ 


Page 

I 393 

Baker forges. 


E 132 

Bald Eagle furnace.. 


H 274 

Ball Play furnace. 


I 288 

Ballou’s forge . 


F 124 

Baltimore steam furnace. 

. 168 

Gr 124 

Baltimore R. M. .. 


G 121 

Baltimore spike mill . 

. 242 

F 177 

Barre forge.. 


H 223 

Barren Spring furnace ... 

. 73 

F 72 

Bartley ville forge. 

Barton’s forge.. 


I 240 


H 205 

Bath furnace . 


E 149.4 Batsto furnace . 

. 62 

D 4 

Bay State R. M. 

. 219 

F 47 

Beach Glen forge. 

. 155 

H 335 

Bear Creek furnace . ... 

. 9S 

H 157 

Bear Garden furnace ... 

. 64 

K 574 

Bear Spring furnace. 

. 132 

E 111 

Beaver furnace. 

. 52 

H 394 

Beaver furnace . 

. 100 

I 361 

Beaver Creek forge.. 

. 200 

I 472 

Beaver forge . 

. 214 

B 15 

Beckley furnace . 

. 28 

F 166 

Bedford forge... 

.174 

B 35 

Beekman’s furnace. 

. 33 

G 106 

Bellefonte It. M. 


F 173 

Bellefonte forge... 

. 175 

H 530 

Bellefonte furnace. 

.124 

K 592 

Bellevue furnace . 

.135 

H 277 

Belleville furnace. 

. 82 

I 389 

Belleville forge. 

.203 

K 573 

Bell wood furnace. 


J 185 

Belinont R. M. . 

. 255 

K 546 

Belmont furnace.. 

. 127 

B 31 

Benedict’s furnace.. _ 

. 32 

I 461 

Benner's forge . 

. 213 

E 137 

Bennington furnace. 

. 59 

H 345 

Ben’s Creek furnace 

. 92 

E 149.1 

Bergen furnace . 

. 62 

A 1 

Berkshire furnace. 

. 1 

E 110 

Berlin furnace_ 

. 52 

F 161 

Berlin forge . 

. 173 

H 443 

Big Bend furnace . 

.106 

I 4S9 

Big Creek forge. 

. 216 

E 73 

Big Pond furnace. 

. 44 

F 138 

Big Pond forge. 

. 170 

II 477 

Big Sand furnace. 

Bill’s forge. 

. 113 

I 223 

. 182 

G 78 

Birdsboro’ R. M... . .. 

.234 

D 25 

Birmingham I. W. 

.224 

I 479 

Biron forge. 

.215 

II 381 

Black Fox furnace.. 

. 97 

H 341 

Blacklick furnace. 

. 91 

K 626 

Black River furnace. 

.141 

I 262 

Blackwood’s forge. 

..187 




















































































































XX 


INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY 


: ® Page 

E 135 Blair furnace. 58 

J 193 Blandy K. M.256 

II 446 Blanche furnace.107 

I 346 Blevin’s forge.198 

II 513 Bloom furnace. 121 

A 102 Bloom furnace... 20 

J 195 Bloom forge R. M.257 

P 49 Bloomary forge. 156 

I 197 Blooma^y forge. 178 

II 178 Bloomary furnace. 65 

E 145 Bloomfield furnace. 61 

P 29 Bloomingdale forge . 152 

K 578 Blooming Grove furnace . 183 

1 482 Blooming Grove forge..". 215 

H 358 Blossburg furnace . 94 

G 101 Blossburg R. M. 239 

I 225 Blue Palls forge.182 

H 151 Blue Ridge furnace . 63 

H 284 Bluff furnace. 83 

H 536 Boone furnace.125 

A 19 Boonton furnace. 5 

G 41 Boonton R. M.228 

J 221 Boquet II. M. 261 

I 253 Bowling Green forge.186 

J 170 Brady’s Bend R. M. 252 

II 372 Brady’s Bend furnace. 96 

G 68 Brandywine It. M.233 

G 69 W. Brandywine R. M. 233 

I 326 Brantley’s forge .195 

K 619 Branch Co. furnace.140 

K 630 Brasher furnace.142 

I 448 Brasher forge.211 

I 449 Brasher Centre forge. 211 

H 324 Breakneck furnace . 88 

E 107.5 Briar creek furnace . 52 

H 462 Briar Hill furnace. 110 

D 8 Bridgewater It. M.220 

C 5.5 Bridgewater forge. 14S 

B 10 Brigg’s furnace. 27 

G 133 Brigg’s R. M.245 

I 275 Brigg’s forge. 188 

H 271 Bright Hope furnace . 81 

F 75 5 Bristol forge.'.161 

F 112 Brooke forge. 166 

E 125 Brookland furnace. 56 

F 163 Brookland forge.173 

I 246 Brown’s forge.185 

I 376 Brown's forge ... 201 

K 601 Brownsport furnace.. . 136 

J 147 Brownsville R. M. 247 

I 459 Brownsville forge . 212 

I 217 Brunswick forge . 181 

P 154 Brunswick forge . 172 

H 519 Brush Creek furnace .122 

I 464 Brush Creek forge .213 

H 177 Bryan's furnace . 66 

II 395 Buchanan f urnace .100 

II 485 Buckeye furnace. 115 

H 499 Buckhorn furnace. 118 

P 74 Budd’s forge. 160 

B 18 Buena Vista furnace. 29 

11 200 Buena Vista furnace. 70 

H 339 Buena Vista furnace. 91 

H 533 Buena Vista furnace . 124 

H 525 Buffalo furnace.123 

H 361 Buffalo furnace. 94 

J 21S Buffalo R. M. 261 

I 215 Buffalo forge. 181 

I 279 Buffalo forge. 1S9 

I 280 Buffalo I. W. forge. 189 

H 235 Buffalo Creek furnace . 75 

I 277 Buffalo Shoals forge. 189 

H 419 Bullion Run furnace ... .103 

A 5 Bull’s Palls furnace. 2 

D 31 Burden’s It. M.226 

P 125 Buslikill forge. 16S 

I 399 Butler's forge .204 


^ % NAME, 

o' a 

> o' C 

: ® Page 

I 385 Cade'8 Cove forge .. .202 

E 75 Caledonia furnace. 44 

F 139 Caledonia forge . 170 

H 202 California furnace. 70 

H 329 California furnace. 89 

I 497 California forge.218 

G 72 Cain R. M.233 

H 347 Cambria furnace. 92 

H 494 Cambria furnace . 117 

J 145 Cambria R. M. 247 

A 79 Cameron furnace. 15 

I 328 Camp’s forge. 195 

H 537.5 Campbranchfurnace . 125 

I 323 Camp Branch forge.194 

I 306 Camp Creek forge. 198 

I 370 Camp Creek forge. 201 

H 196 Canada furnace . 69 

I 375 Canada's forge .201 

H 540 Caney furnace.126 

C 17 Canfield & Robbins’s forge.150 

P 61 Canistear forge. 158 

E 142.5 Canoe furnace . 60 

G 122 Canton R. M.243 

K 630.6 Cantonfalls furnace .142 

II 176 Capon furnace. 66 

I 199 Capon forge. ... 179 

P 136 Carlisle forge.169 

E 70 Carl sle furnace. 43 

H 184 Caroline furnace. 67 

II 527 Carolina furnace. 123 

E 77 Carrick furnace. 45 

P 145 Carrick forge .171 

K 591 Carroll furnace.135 

H 163 Carron furnace . 64 

I 350 Carter Upper forge .. 198 

1351 Carter Lower forge. 198 

H 540 Carter’s furnace . 126 

H 250 Cartersville furnace. 78 

11 856 Carterville furnace . 94 

K 637.5 Carthage furnace .144 

P 121 Castlefin forge. . 167 

H 220 Catawba furnace . 73 

E 105 Catawissa furnace . 51 

F 159 Catawissa forge.173 

II 380 Catfish furnace. 97 

H 153 Catharine f urnace . 63 

H 187 Catharine furnace. . 68 

I 207 Catharine forge. 180 

E 100 Catoctin furnace. 50 

E 94 Cecelia furnace. 49 

K 599 Cedar Grove furnace . 136 

E 89 Cedar Point furnace . 48 

E 119 Centre furnace. 54 

H 319 Centre f urnace . 83 

H 502 Centre furnace. 118 

K 559 Centre furnace.129 

G 94 Central R. M.237 

I 391 Centreville forge.203 

B 23 Chapensville furnace. 80 

P 31 Charlottenburg forge. 153 

G 37 Charlottenburg R. M.227 

P 129 Charming forge. 168 

I 243 Chatham Hill forge.184 

1 235 Chatvvell forge. 183 

G 55 Cheltenham It. M. 231 

G 136 Cherokee Ford R. M.245 

G 137 Cherokee It. M.245 

H 240 Cherokee furnace . 76 

I 284 Cherokee I. W.190 

I 364 Cherokee forge.200 

I 2S3 Cherokee Ford forge.190 

E 87 Chesapeake furnace. 47 

B 9 Cheshire furnace . ... 27 

I 231 Chesnut forge .183 

E 130.6 Chester furnace . 57 

G 65 Ciester Co It. Jf, .232 

E 69 Chestnut Grove furnace. hi 























































































































































INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY 


XXI 



' Page, 

J 214 Chicago R. M.260 

A 72 Chickiswalungo furnace. 14 

E 139 Chimney Rock furnace. 59 

I 332 Chinnibe forge . 194 

G 35 Chrisman’s & Durben’s R. M. . 227 
G 86 Chrisman’s & Co.’s R. M. ... 227 

A 95 Chulasky furnace. 19 

H 4S2 Cincinnati furnace.114 

J 197 Cincinnati R. M. 257 

H 406 Clarion furnace .101 

H 302 Clarksburg furnace. 86 

H 270 Clark's Creek furnace . 81 

K 568 Clark furnace.131 

H 415 Clay A furnace .103 

H 445 Clay B furnace. 106 

H 251 _ Clear Creek furnace. 78 

H 540.5 Clearereek. furnace .126 

I 367 Click’s forge. 200 

A 10 Clinton Furnace.. . 3 

E 43.5 Clinton furnace . 36 

J 154 Clinton it. M. 248 

K 645 Clinton furnace. 145 

II 298 Clinton furnace. 85 

H 413 Clinton furnace.103 

H 512 Clinton furnace.120 

H 531 Clinton furnace.124 

I 219 Clifton forge.182 

H 210 Cl fton furnace. 72 

II 467.3 Clyde furnace .Ill 

H 218 Clover dale furnace. 73 

I 400 Cobb's forge . 204 

E 61 Cold Brook furnace. 41 

II 30S Cold Spring furnace _ . . 87 

D 23 Cold Spring R. M.. .224 

F 181 Cold Spring forge. 176 

F 119 Colemanville forge. ..167 

G 98 Colemanville R. M.238 

F 175 Coleraine forge. 175 

I 493 Collins forge .217 

A 100 Columbia furnace. 20 

H 181 Columbia furnace. 67 

H 233 Columbia furnace. 75 

G 96 Columbia 11 M.238 

F 66 Columbia forge.159 

J 180 Columbus R. M. 254 

C 3 Commercial Point forge.147 

B 5 Conant furnace. 25 

H 467.5 Concord furnace .Ill 

H 467.1 Coneaut furnace . Ill 

H 336 Conemaugh furnace. . 90 

A 66 Conestoga furnace. 14 

E 66 Conowingo furnace . 42 

G 56 Conshohocken II. M. 231 

K 640 Constantia furnace 144 

I 387 Cook’s forge. 202 

I 435 Cook's forge . 209 

A 20 Cooper furnace. 6 

I 263 Cooper’s forge.187 

B 29 Copake furnace. 32 

C 14 Copake forge.. .. 149 

II 409 Corsica furnace. 102 

A 69 Cordelia furnace. 14 

A 88 Cornwall furnace. 16 

B 19 Cornwall furnace. 29 

E 62 Cornwall furnace. 42 

B 20 Cornwall Bridge furnace. 29 

J 174 Cosalo R. M.252 

II 198 Cotopaxi furnace . 70 

H 543 Cottage furnace.126 

F 186 Cove forge.177 

F 102 Coventry forge. 164 

H 863 Cowanshann ock furnace . 95 

H 237 Cowpens furnace. 75 

I 293 Cranberry forge . 191 

l 294 Cranberry forge .. 191 


£ J 

NAME. 


o** *3 

^ O' 

. Cfc 

C 


• ^ 


Page 

G 100 

Crescent R. M. 


J 183 

Crescent R. M. 


K 552 

Crittenden furnace. 


K 571 

Cross Creek furnace . 

. 132 

A 16.5 Croton furnace. 

. 4 

K 62S 

Crown Point furnace . 

. 142 

E 74 

Cumberland furnace ___ 

. 44 

E 149.7 Cumberland furnace . 

. 62 

G 144 | 
J 207 j 

Cumberland R. M. 

J 247 
•• 1 259 

G 44 

Cumberland N. & I. IV. 

.229 

II 276 

Cumberland Gap furnace.... 


K 590 

Cumberland furnace. 

.185 

E 95.6 

Curtis's creek f urnace . 

. 49 


D 


F 91 Dale forge . 163 

I 445 Danemora forge... .210 

K 629 Danemora furnace.142 

D 2 Danvers R. M. . 219 

G 88.5 Danville R. M.236 


I 238 

Davis'8 forge .. . 


H 293 

Davis's f urnace . 

. 84 

I 417 

Dead Water forge. 

.206 

K 602 

Decatur furnace. 

.136 

F 38 

Decker s R. V. forge. 

. 154 

H 404 

Deer Creek furnace - 

. 101 

G 113 

Delaware R. M. 


F 50 

Denmark forge. 

.156 

K 621 

Detroit Furnace. 

.140 

H 488 

Diamond furnace. 

. 116 

G 112 

Diamond State R. M. 

.241 

II 472 

Dillon's furnace .. 

.112 

F 85 

District forge. 

. 162 

F 39 

Dixon’s R. V. forge. 

.154 

I 276 

Dixon’s forge. 

. 189 

H 207 

Dolly Ann furnace. 

. 71 

A 74 

Donegal furnace. 


B 7 

Dorset furnace. 

. 26 

B 33 

Dover furnace.... . ... 

. 32 

H 470 

Dover furnace . 

. 112 

H 467.8 Dover furnace . 

.Ill 

G 42 

Dover R. M. 

.228 

K 575 

Dover No. 2 furnace 

. 132 

F 101 

Do Well forge. 

. 164 

II 471 

Dresden furnace . 

.112 

K 630.4 Duane furnace . 

.142 

A 84 

Dudley furnace. 

. 16 

H 8S3 

Dudley furnace. .. 

. 98 

I 341 

Duggar’s forge. 

.197 

1 379 

Dumpling forge . 

. 201 

A 91 

Duncannon furnace. 

. 18 

G 92 

Duncannon R. M.... 

.237 

J 165 

Duquesne II. M. . 


I 459.6 Duquesne forge. 

.213 


F 43 Durham forge.155 

A 23 Durham furnace. 7 


E 


A 73 

Eagle furnace. 

. 15 

E 116 

Eagle furnace .... 

. 54 

F 171 

Eagle forge. 

. 175 

F 63 

Eagle Anchor forge ... 

. 159 

G 105 

Eagle R. M. 

.289 

J 157 

Eagle R. M. 

. 249 

J 184 

Eagle It. M. 

..254 

F 63 

Eagle forge. 

. 159 

J 224 

Eagle R. M. .. . 

.262 

II 281 

Eagle furnace. 

.. 82 

11 892 

Eagle furnace. 

. 100 

II 461 

Eagle furnace... 

. 110 













































































































































XX11 INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY. 


ft cT 

NAME 


CS § 

E 


• ft 

• 


Page 

H 4S1 

Eagle furnace . 

. 114 

I 319 

Eagle forge . 


I 402 

Eagle No. 1 forge . 

.204 

I 404 

Eagle No. 2 forge.. 

.204 

1) 7 

East Bridgewater It. M. 

.220 

C 12 

East Middlebury forge . 

. 149 

I 469 

East Fork forge . 

. 214 

C 18.2 East Grove forge . 

. 150 

K 570 

Eclipse furnace . 

. 132 

E 129 

Edward furnace.... . 


E 99 

Elba furnace . 

. 50 

H 351 

Eliza furnace . 

. 93 

H 439 

Eliza furnace . 

. 106 

E 59 

Elizabeth furnace . 

41 

E 134 

Elizabeth furnace . 

. 58 

H 193 

Elizabeth furnace . 

. 69 


F 176 Elizabeth forge. 175 

I 475 Elizabeth forge .214 

I 354 Elizabethton forge. 199 

1 420 Elizabethtown forge.207 

II 405 Elk furnace .101 

G 115 Elk R. M. 241 

H 158 Elk Creek furnace . 64 

K 616.6 Elkhart furnace .139 

E 97 Elk Ridge furnace. 49 

H 241 Ellen furnace . 76 

I 444 Elsinore forge. 210 

H 467.9 Elyria furnace. 112 

I 401 Emory's forge .204 

H 518 Empire furnace. 122 

K 560 Empire furnace.130 

I 898 England's forge . 204 

I 467 Enterprise forge . 214 

H 435 Erie f urnace .105 

I 377 Erpes's forge .201 

E 107 Esther furnace. 51 

H 544 Estill furnace.126 

H 197 Estilline furnace. . 69 

E 133 Etna furnace. 5S 

F 185 Etna forge.177 

H 219 Etna furnace . 73 

H 504 Etna furnace. 119 

K 598 Etna; furnace.136 

J 167 Etna R. M.251 

H 246 Etowah furnace. 77 

G 138 Etowah R. M. 246 

I 308 Etowah forge ....193 

K 620 Eureka furnace. 140 

H 263 Evelina f urnace . 80 

I 220 Exchange forge.182 

F 94 Exeter forge.163 



F 


I 300 

Fain forge . 

.192 

II 306 

Fairchance furnace. 

. 87 

J 146 

Fairchance R. M. 

. 247 

I 45S 

Fairchance forge . 

.212 

H 312 

Fairfield furnace . 

. 88 

C 13 

Fairhaven forge. 

.149 

D 28 

Fairhaven It M. 

.225 

F 78 

Fairhill forge. 

. 161 

G 51 

Fairmount R. M. 

. 230 

H 315 

Fair view furnace . 

. 88 

G 93 

Fairview R. M. 


J 176 

Falcon R. M. 


H 459 

Falcon furnace. . 

. .... 109 

D 19 

Full River It. M. 

. 223 

H 304 

Fanny furnace. 

. 86 

II 353 

Farrandsville furnace.... 

. 93 

I 411 

Farmer forge . 

. 205 

I 352 

Farm Hall forge . . 

. 19S 

II 320 

Fayette furnace . 


I 382 

Fayette Co. forge.. .... 

. 196 


^ ^ NAME. 

§- § 


. 1 UQ4 

I 456 Felson's forge .212 

B 86 Fishkill furnace. 33 

II 476 Five Mile furnace. 113 

F 80 Flatrock forge .161 

G 53 Flatrock It. M.230 

I 266 Forbush forge .187 

B 16 Forbes I. Co. furnace. . 28 

II 410 Forest furnace. 102 

E 109 Forest furnace. 52 

I 491 Forest forge.217 

H 179 Fort furnace. 66 

A 9 Fort Edward furnace. 3 

K 604 Forty-eight furnace. 137 

G 62 Fountain Green R. M. . 230 

I 245 Fox Creek forge .. 1S5 

B 2 Franconia furnace . 25 

A 96 Franklin furnace. 19 

E 43 Franklin furnace. 36 

E 79 Franklin furnace . 45 

K 612 Franklin furnace. 138 

H 258 Franklin furnace. 79 

II 516 Franklin furnace 121 

H 378 Franklin ( \V. C) furnace . 97 

C 20 Franklin forge.151 

F 98 Franklin forge . 164 

F 187 Franklin forge. 177 

J 171 Franklin R. M. .252 

J 196 Franklin R. M.257 

G 84 Franklin R. M. . 236 

E 140 Frankstown furnace. 60 

E 40 Freedom furnace .. 35 

F 162 Freedom forge. 173 

F 29.5 Freeland's forge . ... 152 

I 278 Froneberger forge. 189 

I 256 . Frost's forge .186 

I 259 Fulk's forge .186 

K 634 Fullerville furnace. .143 

I 452 Fullerville forge.211 

Iv 558 Fulton furnace. 129 

I 466 Fulton forge .213 


G 

H 495 Gallia furnace . 117 

E 141 Gap furnace. 60 

G 139 Gate City It. M.246 

E 188 Gaysport furnace. 59 

H 467.4 Geauga furnace.Ill 

E 64 Georgiana furnace. 42 

H 150 Georgetown furnace . 63 

K 563 Gerard furnace.130 

G 79 Gibraltar It. M.235 

I 213 Gibraltar forge.181 

F 99 Gibraltar forge. .164 

G 143 Gillespie's R. M. .247 

F 83 Glasgow forge.162 

C 7 Glastonbury forge. 148 

H 417 Glen furnace . 103 

D 3 Glendon R. M. . 219 

A 26 Glendon furnace. 6 

H 201 Glenwood furnace. 70 

H 521.1 Globe furnace . 122 

I 218 Globe forge.181 

J 198 Globe R M. ...257 

I 403 Gordon forge.204 

D 17 Gosnold R. M.222 

II 213 Grace furnace. 72 

I 233 Graham forge.183 

G 132 Graham’s R. M. 244 

K 565 Great Western furnace.130 

F 82 Greenlane forge. 162 

B 4 Green Mountain furnace . 25 

E 103 Greeuspring furnace. 51 

H 534 Greenup furnace. 125 


























































































































































INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY. 


xxiii 



H 292 
D 27 
A 17 
E 37 
E 127 
E 107 
E 86 


NAME. 


Greenville furnace . 84 

Greenwich II. M...225 

Greenwood furnace. 5 

Greenwood furnace . 33 

Greenwood furnace. 56 

Greenwood forge. 165 

Gunpowder furnace. 47 


H 


H 480 Hambden furnace.114 

E 42.5 Hamburg furnace . 36 

H 442 Hamburg furnace .106 

E 48 Hampton furnace. 38 

E 55 Hampton furnace. 39 

I 856 Hampton’s forge .199 

J 194 Hangingrock R. M.256 

E 121.5 Hannah furnace . 55 

E 149.2 Hanover furnace . 62 

F 144.7 Hanover forge . .171 

I 290 Harbard's forge .291 

F 56 Hardbargain forge.157 

E 84 Harford furnace. 47 

I 200 Harmony forge .179 

H 441 Harriet f urnace . 106 

A 80 Harrisburg furnace . 16 

H 515 Harrison furnace.121 

G 95 Harrisburg R. M. 238 

II 438 Ilarry-of-the- West furnace . 106 

H 221 Harvey's furnace . 73 

B 36.5 Haverstraw furnace . 33 

F 22.5 Haverstraw forge .151 

E 115 Hecla furnace.:- 58 

F 152 Hecla forge .172 

G 103 Hecla it. M.239 

J 151 Hecla R. M. 248 

H 509 Hecla furnace.120 

H 408 Helen furnace.102 

I 285 Helton forge.190 

H 412 Hemlock furnace. 102 

I 312 Hemptown forge.193 

A 49 Henry Clay furnace . 11 

A 71 Henry Clay furnace. 14 

A 105 Henry Clay furnace. 21 

II 294 Henry Clay furnace. 84 

I 484 Henry Clay forge. 216 

F 167 Hepburn forge. 174 

H 332 Hermitage furnace . 90 

F 35 Herringbone forge. 153 

E 112 Heshbon furnace. 53 

F 16S Heshbon forge.174 

G 99 Heshbon R. M.238 

I 260 Hiatt’s Lower forge. 187 

I 261 Hiatt’s Upper forge.186 

F 106 Hibernia forge. 165 

G 73 Hibernia It. M. 234 

II 386 Hickory furnace . 98 

I 426 Highland forge.208 

1 237 High Rock forge . 184 

G 134 High Shoals R. M. .245 

I 274 High Shoals forge .188 

I 258 Hill’s forge . 186 

I 329 Hill's forge .195 

I 881 Hill’s forge.195 

I 264 Hobsons’s forge.187 

II 475 Hocking furnace.113 

I 304 Hodge's forge .192 

E 139 Holidaysburg furnace . 59 

E 71 Holly furnace .. 44 

C 4 Holmes’Anchor forge.149 

H 259 Holston furnace ... . 79 

I 136 Honsinger’s forge...209 

A 93 Hope furnace. 18 

E 41.6 Hope f urnace . 35 



E 57 
K 553 
F 60 
E 114 
F 170 
G 102 
II 511 
I 249 
I 344 
I 845 
A 11 
C 8 
A 107 
H 156 
E 123 
II 236 
K 551 
G 135 
I 448 


NAME. 


Hopewell furnace. 11 

Hopewell furnace. 40 

Hopewell furnace Tf. .128 

Hopewell forge . .158 

Howard furnace. 53 

Howard forge. 175 

Howard R. M.239 

Howard furnace. 120 

Howard’s forge.185 

Howard’s Lower forge. 197 

Howard’s Upper forge. 197 

Hudson’s furnace. 3 

Humphreysville forge.148 

Hunlach Creek furnace ..... 21 

Hunter's furnace . 63 

Huntingdon furnace. 55 

Hurricane furnace.... . 75 

Hurricane furnace. 128 

Hurricane R. M. 245 

Hurricane forge . 216 


1 


K 613 Illinois furnace. 188 

H 256 Independent furnace .. . 79 

H 340 Indiana furnace . 91 

K 616 Indiana furnace.. 139 

J 215 Indianapolis R. M. 260 

H 449 Iron City furnace . 107 

A 103 Irondale furnace. 20 

J 190 Ironton R. M. 256 

K 625 Ironton furnace.141 

H 483 Iron Valley furnace.115 

K 566 Iron Mountain furnace.131 

K 608 Iron Mountain furnace.138 

E 58.6 Isabella furnace . 41 

II 186 Isabella furnace . 68 

F 103 Isabella forge.165 

I 311 Ivy Log forge . 193 


J 


E 129.6 Jackson furnace . 57 

H 433 Jackson furnace .105 

H 492 Jackson furnace .. ..117 

K 596 Jackson furnace . 136 

I 495 Jackson forge .217 

1216 James River forge ... -- 181 

H 215 Jane furnace . 72 

H 420 Jane furnace.104 

I 455 Jefferson forge.212 

J 220 Jefferson R. M. 261 

H 390 Jefferson furnace. 99 

H 491 Jefferson furnace.116 

J 181 Jefferson R. M. 254 

I 269 Jenny Lind forge. 188 

E 56 Joanna furnace. 40 

I 250 Johnson's forge . 185 

I 296 Johnson’s forge. 191 

H 343 Johnstown furnace. 92 

B 22 Joiceville furnace . 30 

G 120 Joppa Nail Works.242 

E 120 Juliana furnace. 54 

E 142 Juniata furnace .... 60 

F 178 Juniata forge.176 

F 179 Juniata forge.176 

G 108 Juniata It. M.240 

G 109 Juniata R. M. .240 

J 163 Juniata R. M. . 250 

J 164 Juniata R. M... 250 

H 517 Junior furnace .. .121 








































































































































XXIV 


INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY, 


S? & NAME. 


K 617 Kalamazoo furnace. 189 

B 1 Katahdin furnace. 25 

I 873 Kelly's forge .201 

H 8S4 Kensington furnace . 98 

J 159 Kensington R. M.250 

G 47 Kensington R. M.229 

G 48 Kensington I. W. 229 

B 27 Kent furnace. 81 

H 528 Kenton furnace. 122 

I 257 Keyser's forge . 186 

A 51 Keystone furnace. 11 

F 96 Keystone forge. 164 

H 486 Keystone furnace.115 

G 83 Keystone It. M. 235 

I 299 Killian forge .192 

I 407 Kimbrough forge .. 205 

I 347 King’s forge. 198 

H 243 King'sCreekfurnace . 76 

D 15 Kinsley R. M. 222 

J 169 Kittanning R. M .252 


L. 

J 186 La Belle R. M. 255 

A 109 Lackawanna furnace. 21 

G 88 Lackawanna R. M. 236 

J 208 Laclede R. M. . 259 

K 5S8 Lafayette furnace . 134 

E 82 Lagrange furnace. 46 

H 508 Lagrange furnace .120 

K 569 Lagrange furnace.131 

H 160 Lag rande furnace . 64 

H 301 Lancaster furnace. 86 

K 616.4 Laporte furnace . 139 

H 484 Latrobe furnace.115 

K 561 Laura furnace. 130 

E 93 Laurel furnace. 48 

F 137 Laurel forge.169 

H 535 Laurel furnace.125 

K 595 Laurel furnace . 135 

I 292 Laurel forge . .. . 191 

G 70 Laurel R. M.233 

H 335 Laurel Hill furnace. 90 

H 503 Lawrence furnace. 119 

J 192 Lawrence R. M. 256 

F 130 Lebanon forge. 168 

I 214 Lebanon Valley forge.181 

A 44 Leesport furnace. 10 

H 272 Legion furnace . 81 

E 45 Lehigh furnace. 37 

G 45 Lehigh R. M. 229 

A 33 Lehigh Crane furnace 8 

A 40 Lehigh Valley furnace. 9 

E 147 Lemnos furnace. 61 

F 165 Lemnos forge. 174 

H 2S5 Lena f urnace . 83 

B 11 Lenox furnace. 27 

H 249 Lewis’s furnace. 77 

I 329 Lewis's forge . 195 

A 92 Lewistown furnace. 18 

F 135 Liberty forge. 169 

H 185 Liberty furnace. 68 

H 434 Liberty furnace .105 

I 203 Liberty forge. 179 

H 411 Licking furnace .102 

J 200 Licking R. M...257 

K 646 L’llet furnace.146 

B 24 Limerock furnace... 30 

H 401 Limestone furnace .101 

H 490 Limestone furnace.116 

I 897 Lindsay forge. 204 

K 562 Lineport furnace .130 

J 162 Lippincott. R. M. 250 

I 390 Little Barren forge. 208 

I 286 Little Elk Creek forge.190 


^ ^ NAME. 


: 5 Page 

H 321 Little Falls furnace .88 

I 287 Little River forge.191 

II 267 Little Troublesome furnace . 80 

II 338 Lockpari f urnace . 91 

F 68 Lockwood forge.159 

E 85 Locust Grove furnace. 47 

E 117 Logan furnace. 54 

II 474 Logan furnace.113 

H 289 Lonaconing furnace. 84 

F 27 Long Pond forge. 152 

I 315 Lookout forge . 193 

II 342 Loop f urnace . 91 

J 166 Lorens R. M.251 

E 78.6 Loudon furnace . 45 

G 141 Loudon R. M. 246 

F 144.8 Loudon forge .171 

K 585 Louisa furnace.134 

J 204 Louisville R. M.258 

H 273 Lore's furnace . 81 

I 381 Love'8 forge . 202 

I 297 Lovinggood forge. 192 

I 431 Lower Black Brook forge.208 

I 351 Lower Carter forge. 198 

I 434 Lower Clintonville forge ... 209 

1 298 Lower Hangingdog forge. 192 

F 54 Lower Longwood forge. 157 

I 325 Lower Yellow Leaf forge.195 

A 57 Lucinda furnace. . 12 

II 407 Lucinda furnace.102 

H 208 Lucy Selina furnace . 71 


Ifl 

B 28 Macedonia furnace. 31 

H 231 Madison furnace. 74 

H 397 Madison furnace . 100 

H 489 Madison furnace.116 

I 270 Madison forge. 188 

H 369 Mahoning furnace. 96 

H 457 Mahoning furnace.109 

J 175 Mahoning R. M. 253 

E 53 Maiden Creek furnace. 39 

F 126 Maiden Creek forge. * . 168 

E 131 Malinda furnace. 57 

F 164 Malinda forge.174 

K 557 Mammoth furnace.129 

E 63 Manada furnace. .... 42 

A 18 Manhattan furnace. 5 

II 357 Mansfield furnace. 94 

H 382 Maple furnace . 98 

J 213 Maramec R. M. . 260 

K 611 Maramec furnace. . 138 

I 492 Maramec forge.217 

H 521 Marble furnace .122 

H 190 Margaret Jane furnace ... 69 

A 114 Margaretta furnace. 23 

E 68 Margaretta furnace. 43 

E 46 Maria furnace. 87 

F 148 Maria forge.171 

F 188 Maria forge.177 

F 189 Maria forge . 178 

F 190 Maria forge . ... .178 

I 320 Maria forge. 194 

A 75 Marietta furnace. 15 - 

A 61 Marion furnace... 13 

H 387 Marion furnace. 99 

K 603 Marion furnace.137 

E 129.5 Marion furnace . 57 

K 649 Marmora furnace.146 

G 114 Marshall’s It. M. 241 

E 121 Martha furnace. 55 

E 141 Martha furnace. 60 

F 191 Martha forge. 178 

II 398 Martha furnace. loo 

H 455 Martha furnace.. . 109 















































































































































I 


INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY. XXV 


9 s 

NAME. 





p OH 

M 


• ^ 


Page 

K 614 

Martha furnace. 

.... 139 

F 120 

Martic forge.. 

.167 

E 49 

Mary Ann furnace. 

. 33 

E 74.6 Mary Ann furnace . 

.. .. 44 

F 105 

Mary Ann forge. 

. 165 

F 184 

Mary Ann forge.. 

. 177 

II 311 

Mary Ann furnace .. 

. 88 

H 403 

Mary Ann furnace. . 

.101 

H 440 

Mary Ann furnace .. 

. 106 

H 473 

Mary Ann furnace . 

.112 

E 91 

Maryland furnace. 

. 48 

II 467 

Massillon furnace. 

.Ill 

E 126 

Matilda fu nace. 

.. .. 56 

A 42 

Mauch Chunk furnace . 

. 9 

I 227 

Mayo forge.. ... . 

.182 

H 450 

Mazeppa furnace. 

.107 

H 175 

McCarty furnace . 

. 66 

G S2 

Mcllvaine's R. M. 


J 143 

McKeesport R. M. .... 

.247 

J 199 

Mc.Nickle R. M. 

.257 

H 463 

Meander furnace. 

. 110 

I 439 

Me chant’s forge. 

.210 

I 424 

Merriam’s forge.. 

. 207 

F 34 

Methodist forge... 

. 153 

F 51 

Middle forge. 

. 156 

H 467.7 Middleburg furnace . 

.Ill 

H 468.4 

Middlebury f urnace . 

. 112 

II 448 

Middlesex furnace. 

.107 

A 77 

Middletown furnace. 

... 15 

I 252 

Milam forge. 

.1S5 

F 172 

Milesburg forge. 

.. 175 

G 104 

Milesburg R. M. .. .... 

.239 

E 128 

Mill Creek furnace . 

. 56 

H 344 

Mill Creek furnace. 

. 92 

H 427 

Mill Greek furnace . 

. 105 

11 464 

Mill Creek furnace . 


II 280 

Miller’s furnace. 

. 82 

H 542 

Miller Greek furnace . 

. 126 

A 115 

M 11 Hall furnace ... . 

. 23 

E 149.8 Millsborough furnace . 

. 62 

E 149 

Milville furnace .... 


11 439 

Mineral Ridge furnace. .. 

. 106 

K 616.5 

Mishawaka f urnace . 

. 139 

J 182 

Missouri R. M. 

.254 

J 210 

Missouri R. M. 

. . 259 

I 251 

Moccasin forge. 

. 185 

E 122 

Monroe furnace. 


F 132 

Monroe forge. 

. 169 

H 400 

Monroe furnace. 

.101 

11 493 

Monroe furnace. 

.... 117 


G 42.5 Monroe, R. M. . .228 

E 76 Mont Alto furnace. 45 

F 140 Mont Alto forge. 170 

G 110 Mont Alto R. M. 240 

A 56 Montgomery furnace. 12 

K 5S2 Montgomery furnace. 134 

I 406 Montgomery’s forge. 205 

A 97 Montour furnace. 19 

G 90 Montour R. M. 237 

H 206 Moore's furnace . 71 

F 64 Morris Anchor forge.159 

A 45 Moselem furnace. 10 

K 612 Moselle furnace .138 

H 194 Mossy Greek furnace . 69 

I 211 Mossy Creek forge. 180 

I 305 Mossy Creek forge. 102 

I 378 Mossy Greek forge . 201 

I 369 Mountain forge . 200 

F 127 Mount Airy forge .168 

I 167 Mount Carmel forge. 187 

E 53.5 Mount Eden furnace .-. 41 

H 317 Mount Etna furnace . . 8S 

F 155 Mount Hebron forge .172 

E 60 Mount Hope furnace. 41 

H 203 Mount Uope furnace . 71 


H 316 Mount Hope furnace . 88 

K 627 Mount Hope furnace.141 

D 18 Mount Hope R. M.. 223 

E 52 Mount Laurel furnace . 39 

F 71 Mount Olive forge. 160 

E 54 Mount Penn furnace. 39 

H 409 Mount Pleasant furnace.102 

E 78.5 Mount Pleasant furnace . 45 

F 51.5 Mount Pleasant forge . 156 

F 144.5 Mount Pleasant forge . 171 

F 84 Mount Pleasant forge. 162 

B 21 Mount Riga furnace. 29 

C 15 Mount Riga forge. 149 

G 127 Mount Savage II. M.244 

H 286 Mount Savage furnace. 83 

H 538 Mount Savage furnace. 125 

1 272 Mount Tirza forge.188 

H 195 Mount Torry furnace. 69 

E 60.5 Mount Vernon furnace . 41 

H 314 Mount Vernon furnace . 88 

II 500 Mount Vernon furnace.118 

K 587 Mount Vernon furnace.134 

I 210 Mount Vernon forge.180 

F 153.6 Mount Vernon forge . 172 

I 273 Mount Welcome forge.188 

E 98 Muirkirk furnace. 50 

I 342 Murphey’s Upper forge. 197 

I 343 Murphey’s Lower forge. 197 

H 465 Mosquito Creek furnace .110 

I 440 Myer’s forge. 210 


N 

A 15 Napannock furnace . 4 

E 149.9 Nascongo furnace . 62 

C 1 Nashua forge.147 

I 194 Navy Yard forge . 178 

K 548 Nelson furnace . 127 

F 158 Nescopec forge. 173 

G 81 Neversink R M.235 

F 69 New Andover forge.159 

C 22 New forge. 151 

II 154 New Furnace furnace. 63 

J 178 Newburg R. M.253 

H 522 New Hampshire furnace.122 

C 18.4 New Hartford forge. 150 

II 323 New Laurel furnace . 88 

A 83 New Market furnace. 16 

F 133 New Market forge ..169 

J 152 New Mill R. M. 248 

J 203 Newport R. M.258 

I 419 New Russia forge. .206 

I 432 New Sweden forge .208 

1 241 Nicholses forge. 184 

I 418 Noble’s forge. 206 

I 474 Nolin's forge . 214 

F 77 Norris’s forge ....... 161 

G 59 Norristown R. M.231 

I 43S Norrisville forge. 209 

I 450 Norfolk forge . 211 

B 8 North Adams furnace. 27 

H 432 North Bend furnace .105 

B 30 Northeast furnace. 32 

F 143 Nertheast forge .170 

G 117 Northeast R. M. 242 

I 291 North Fork forge .191 

I 416 North Hudson forge. 206 

F 128 Northkill forge.168 

A 85 North Lebanon furnace. 16 

II 238 North Twin furnace. 76 

K 624 Northwestern furnace . 141 

D 5 Norway R. M.219 

K 641 Norwich A furnace. 145 

K 642 Norwich B furnace... . 145 




























































































































































XXVI INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY 


^ ^ NAME. 


• -t rage 

K 584 0. K. furnace.134 

F 156 Oakdale forge. 172 

H 333 Oak grove furnace . 90 

H 191 Oakland furnace . 69 

K 597 Oakland furnace. .. 186 

H 501 Oakridge furnace. .118 

H 265 O'Brien's furnace ... . 80 

F 118 Octarora forge.167 

G 119 Octarora R. M. 242 

H 510 Ohio furnace. 120 

C 18.8 Old Adams forge.150 

F 41 Old Boonton forge.154 

K 550 Old Bucknorfurnace . 128 

H 346 Old Cambria furnace . 92 

E 41.5 Old Gharlottenburg furnace _ 35 

D 16 Old Colony Works R. M.222 

G 131 Old Dominion R. M. 244 

I 221 Old Forge forge .182 

I 222 Old Forge forge .182 

I 232 Old Forge forge .183 

I 239 Old Forge forge .184 

I 289 Old Forge forge . 191 

I 340 Old Forge forge . 197 

I 863 Old Forge forge .209 

F 142.5 Old Forge forge . 170 

H 168 Old Furnace .. 65 

H 169 Old Furnace . 65 

II 192 Old. Furnace . 69 

H 222 Old Furnace . 73 

H 468.6 Old Furnace . 112 

II 545 Old Furnace .127 

H 260 Old Furnace . 80 

H 261 Old Furnace . 80 

K 556 Old Furnace . 129 

E 147.5 Old Hopewell furnace . 61 

I 471.5 Old Hopewell forge .214 

H 322 Old Laurel furnace . 88 

II 541 Old State furnace .126 

F 25.8 Old Bingwood forge .132 

II 520 Old Steam furnace . 122 

E 38.6 Old Sterling furnace . 84 

II 291 Old Valley furnace . 84 

E 50 Oley furnace. 88 

F 89 Oley forge.163 

H 498 Olive furnace.118 

H 370 Olney furnace . 96 

K 644 Ontario furnace.145 

B 36.6 Orange furnace . 83 

F 163.5 Orbisoniaforge . 174 

A 121 Oregon furnace. 24 

H 444 Oregon furnace .106 

H 865 Ore Hill furnace . 95 

J 173 Orizaba R. M. 252 

H 424 Orleans furnace . 104 

I 388 Overton’s forge.202 

E 44 Oxford furnace. 36 

H 161 Oxford furnace . 64 

F 76 Oxford forge.161 

G 46 Oxford R. M. 229 

K 553 Ozeoro furnace. 128 


P 

J 211 Pacific R. M. ... ...260 

H 526.5 Pactolus furnace . . 123 

II 180 Paddy furnace. 67 

I 372 Paint Creek forge.201 

G 86 Palo Alto R. M.236 

H 204 Panther Gap furnace . 71 

D 13 Parker R. M.221 

II 225 Parry Mount f urnace . 74 

E 148.5 Paradise furnace . 62 

E 95.5 Patapsco furnace . 49 

F 28 Paterson forge.152 


3 & 

NAME. 



P 


• 


Page 

I 485 

Paterson forge. 

... 216 

E 95 

Patuxent furnace . 

... 49 

II 228 

Paulina furnace . 

... 74 

E 108 

Paxinas furnace. . 

. .. 52 

F 160 

Paxinas forge. 

... 173 

A 81 

Paxton furnace. 

... 16 

A 16 

Peekskill furnace. 

. 4 

1) 1 

Pembroke R. M. 

.. 219 

F 85 

Pencoyd forge. 

... 161 

G 54 

Pencoyd R. M.. 

... 230 

I 414 

Penfield’s forge. 

... 206 

E 106 

Penn furnace. 

... 51 

G 49 

Penn II. M. 

. .. 229 

E 47 

Pennsville furnace. 

... 37 

F 150 

Pennsville forge. 

... 172 

E 124 

Pennsylvania furnace. 

.. 55 

H 532 

Pennsylvania furnace. 

.. 124 

G 57 

Pennsylvania R. M. 

... 231 

I 459.2 

Pennsylvania forge. 

... 212 

J 158 

Pennsylvania Forge II. M. 

... 249 

I 301 

Persimmon Creek forge. 

... 192 

J 223 

Peru Iron Works R. M. 

. 262 

F 57 

Petersburg forge .. 

... 157 

K 567 

Peytona furnace... 

... 131 

H 46 i 

Philpot furnace. 

... 110 

A 53 

Phcenix furnace.<... 

... 12 

11 371 

Phoenix furnace . 

... 96 

11 460 

Phoenix furnace. 

... 109 

K 5S3 

Phoenix furnace . 

... 184 

G 62 

Phoenix R. M. 


I 234 

Pierce’s forge. 

... 183 

I 230 

Pierce's old forge . 

... 1S3 

I 380 

Pigeon forge . 

... 202 

H 377 

Pike furnace. 

... 97 

K 606 

Pilot Knob furnace. 

... 137 

I 491 

Pilot Knob forge . 

... 217 

II 364 

Pine Creek furnace. 

... 95 

I 204 

Pine forge. 

... 179 

G 77 

Pine R. M. ... 


E 72 

Pinegrove furnace. 

... 44 

F 116 

Pinegrove forge. 

... 166 

I 365 

Pinegrove forge . 

... 200 

II 313 

Pinegrove furnace . 

.. 88 

II 506 

Pinegrove furnace. 

... 119 

G 75 

Pinegrove It M. 

... 234 

H 299 

Piney furnace. 


K 594 

Pinev furnace. 


11 283 

Piney Grove furnace . 

... 83 

I 244 

Piney Cliff forge. 


I 409 

Piney Lower forge.. 

.. 205 

I 408 

Piney Upper forge. 

.... 205 

A 43 

Pioneer furnace. 


H 497 

Pioneer furnace. 

. . 117 

K 622 

Pioneer furnace. 

.... 140 

J 155 

Pittsburg R. M. 


.1 160 

Pittsburg Steel R. M. 

.... 250 

B 6 

Pittsford furnace. 

.... 26 

I 443 

Platt’s forge. 


F 108 

Pleasant Garden forge. 

.... 165 

II 269 

Pleasant Valley furnace. 

.... 80 

G 74 

Pleasant Garden R. M. 

.... 234 

F 108 

Pleasant Garden forge . 

.... 165 

G 140 

Pleasant Valley R. M. 

.... 246 

A 60 

Plymouth furnace. 


A 41 

Poco furnace... .. 


H 458 

Poland furnace . 


II 398 

Polk furnace. 


II 253 

Polkville furnace. 


I 316 

Polkville forge.... 


J 189 

Pomeroy R. M. 


E 41 

Pompton furnace... . 


G 3S 

Pompton R. M. . 


F 109 

Pool forge. 

.... 165 

11 247 

Pool furnace.. 


I 307 

Poole forge. 

























































































































































INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY 


xxvii 


S? § NAME. 


H 166 Poplar Camp furnace . 65 

K 579 Poplar Spring furnace.133 

G 107 Portage It. M.240 

P 193 Portage forge ..178 

H 227 Porter's furnace . 74 

A 6 Port Henry. 2 

I 427 Port Kendall forge .207 

H 152 Potomac furnace .. 63 

H 417 Porterfield furnace.103 

G 76 Pottsgrove It. M.234 

G S5 Pottsville R. M. 236 

A 13 Poughkeepsie furnace.... 4 

F 40 Powerville forge.154 

G 39 Powerville R. M. .... 227 

H 414 President furnace.103 

E 81 Principio furnace. 46 

H 391 Prospect furnace. 99 

D 20 Providence R. M. 223 

I 353 Purlieu forge. . ..... . 199 

I 428 Purmort’s forge.207 


a 

I 896 Queener forge.204 

K 618 Quincey furnace.140 

D 22 Quinsigamund R. M. 223 


It 

H 524 Raccoon furnace.123 

K 647 Radnor furnace. 146 

J 177 Railroad R. M. 253 

H 467.6 Railroad furnace .Ill 

H 355 Ralston furnace . 93 

F 25 Ramapo forge.151 

G 33 Ramapo R. M. 226 

H 337 Ramsey furnace . 91 

I 478 Randolph forge.215 

J 209 Raynor’s R. M. 259 

A 46 Robesonia furnace. 11 

A 48 Reading furnace. 11 

G 80 Reading R. M. 235 

F 97 Reading steam forge. 164 

F 161.5 Rebecca forge .. 173 

E 127 5 Rebecca furnace . 56 

E 144 Rebecca furnace. 60 

H 214 Rebecca furnace . 72 

H 376 Redbank furnace . 96 

I 473 Red River forge.214 

J 203 Red River R. M. . 258 

H 310 Redstone furnace. 87 

K 632 Redwood furnace.143 

G 142 Reeve's R. M. .246 

I 355 Reeve'8 forge . 199 

H 230 Rehoboth furnace. 74 

D 29 Rensselaer R. M.225 

E 89.6 Renton’s furnace. 34 

II 216 Retreat furnace . 72 

II 423 Reymilton furnace.104 

J 219 Richardson R. M. .261 

1 394 Richardson’s forge. 203 

I 410 Richland forge .... . 205 

H 389 Richland furnace. 99 

K 615 Richland furnace.139 

B 13 Richmond furnace . 28 

G 130 Richmond S. and I. W.244 

F 46 Richter’s Mer’n forge.155 

E 39.5 Ringwood furnace. 34 

F 26 Ringwood forge .. 152 

F 115 Ringwood forge. 166 

V 0^ Rio T> - ,j n tore 7 * , ., ... . 1 ' 



NAME. 


s | 

?> 

• <$» 

It 


• ^ 

Roaring Run furnace . 

Page 

H 212 

.... 72 

F 48 

Rockaway forge. 


G 40 

Rockaway R. M. 

.... 228 

I 318 

Rob Roy forge. . 

.... 194 

E 65 

Rock furnace . 

.... 42 

E 118 

Rock"furnace . 

.... 54 

H 359 

Rock furnace . 

.... 94 

F 174 

Rock forge. 

.... 175 

I 198 

Rock forge . 

.... 179 

H 268 

Rockbridge furnace . 


E 130 

Rockhill furnace. 

.... 57 

H 328 

Rockingham furnace . 

.. . 89 

II 418 

Rockland furnace. 

.... 103 

F 87 

RocklaDd forge. 


G 67 

Rokeby R. M. 

.... 282 

F 67 

Roseville forge. 


H 3,34 

Ross furnace . 


K 631 

Rossie furnace. 

.... 142 

A 116 

Rough and Ready furnace ... 

.... 23 

E 148 

Rough and Ready furnace ... 

.... 61 

H 155 

Rough and Ready furnace . 

.... 63 

I 268 

Rough and Ready forge. 

.... 1S8 

K 572 

Rough and Ready furnace ... 

.... 132 

G 89 

Rough and Ready R. M. 

.... 237 

H 252 

Round Mountain furnace .... 

.... 78 

H 211 

Rumsey furnace . 

.... 72 

D 9 

Russell & Co. R. M. ... 


H 255 

R ussellville furnace . 

.... 79 

F 59 

Russia forge . 

.... 158 

I 441 

Russia 1 Jorge . 

.... 210 

I 442 

Russia 2 forge. 

210 


J 162 

S 

Sable R. M. 

... 250 

J 222 

Sable Iron Works R. M.... . .. 

... 262 

F 113 

Sadsbury forge. 

... 166 

A 65 

Safe Harbor furnace. 

... 13 

G 97 

Safe Harbor R. M. 

... 238 

K 581 

Sailor’s Rest furnace. 

... 133 

K 564 

Saline furnace. 

.... 130 

C 11 

Salisbury forge. 

... 149 

C 18 

Salisbury Centre forge. 

... 150 

E 51 

Sally Ann furnace. 

... 39 

H 488 

Saltlick furnace. 

... 115 

K 547 

Salt River furnace . 

.... 127 

I 460 

Sample's forge . 

... 213 

I 338 

Sand Hill forge. 

... 196 

I 839 

Sand Spring forge. 

.... 197 

H 539 

Sandy furnace . 

... 126 

H 422 

Sandv furnace. 

... 104 

H 437 

Sandy furnace . 

... 106 

E 83 

Sarah furnace. 

,... 46 

E 146 

Sarah furnace.. 

.... 61 

II 162 

Saunders's furnace . 

.... 64 

E 97.5 

Savage furnace . 

.... 49 

I 463 

Scioto forge .. 

.... 213 

I 457 

Scott's forge .. 

.... 212 

B 17 

Scovill’s furnace. 

... 23 

F 153 

Schuylkill forge . 

.... 172 

G 55.5 

Schuylkill R. M. 

.... 231 

I 415 

Schroon River forge. 

.... 206 

F 95 

Seidel’s forge . 

.... 163 

H 244 

Sequee furnace . 

.... 76 

I 303 

Sequee forge .. 


II 326 

Shade furnace . 

... 89 

A 94 

Shamokin furnace.. 

.... 13 

G 118 

Shannon R. M.. 

.... 242 

II 170 

Shannondale furnace. 

.... 65 

J 172 

Sharon It. M. 

. ..252 

YT ’ 

- - . 

. 107 







































































































































T 


xxviii 


INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY. 


a ^ 

S 2 




NAME. 

S 


I 395 Sharp’s forge. 

II 446 Sharpsburg furnace. 

A 67 Shawnee furnace. 

J 156 Sheffield K. M. 

I 459.4 Sheffield forge. 

H 254 Shelby furnace. 

H 167 Shelor's furnace . 

I 209 Shenandoah forge. 

H 188 Shenandoah furnace... . 

E 104 Shickshinny furnace ... 

I 383 Shields forge . 

E 70 Shippensport forge. 

H 402 Shippensville furnace.... 

I 302 Shoal Creek forge. 

I 468 Shreeve's forge . 

H 514 Sioto furnace. 

A 8 Siscoe furnace . 

H 421 Slab furnace. 

H 396 Sl go furnace. 

J 153 Sligo R. M... . 

F 25.2 Stoat's forge . 

F 30 Smith’s forge. 

I 371 Snapp’s forge. 

H 325 Somerset furnace. 

H 454 Sophia furnace. 

F 142 So undwell forge . 

A 118 South Baltimore furnace . 

I 196 South Bend forge. 

E 74 5 Southampton furnace . 

J 205 Southern R. M. 

A 25 South Easton furnace.... 

E 38 Southfield furnace. 

H 239 South Twin furnace. 

F 62 Sparta forge. 

F 92 Speedwell forge . 

F 134 Speedwell forge . 

I 205 Speedwell forge. 

I 349 Speedwell forge. 

I 892 Speedwell forge . 

H 278 Speedwell furnace . 

F 44 Split Rock forge. 

F 90 Spring forge. 

F 123 Spring forge . 

H 451 Springfield furnace. 

E 143 Springfield lurnace. 

F 111 Spring Grove forge. 

A 62 Spring Mill furnace. 

H 305 Spring Hill furnace. .... 

I 271 Spring Hill forge. 

F 104 Springton forge. 

A 19.5 Stanhope furnace. 

A 90 Stanhope furnace. 

II 388 Stapley furnace. 

H 537 Star furnace. 

J 191 Star Nail R. M. 

A 70 St. Charles furnace. 

H 379 St. Charles furnace. 

I 462 Steam forge . 

II 528 Steam furnace. 

C 18.6 Stephen’s forge. 

F 25.6 Sterling forge . 

E 89 Sterling furnace. 

K 635 Sterlingburg furnace... . 

K 636 Sterlingbush furnace. 

K 637 Sterlingville furnace. 

1 454 Sterlingville forge. 

H 363 Stewardson furnace. 

F 45 Stickel’s Meridian forge.., 

I 281 Stice’s Shoals forge. 

D 26 Stillwater R. M. 

II 318 St. John's f urnace . 

J 203 St. Louis R. M. 

K 643 St. Maurice furnace. 

B 12 Stockb ridge furnace. 

A 8 Stockbridge furnace. 

F 180 Stockdale forge. 


Page 
.. 203 
. 107 
.. 14 

.. 249 
.. 212 
.. 79 
.. 65 
.. ISO 
.. 68 
.. 51 
.. 202 
.. 160 
.. 101 
.. 192 
.. 214 


95 

155 

189 

224 

88 

259 

146 

27 

2 

176 


$ & 

§ 

• <$> 

• "S 

F 88 
I 446 


I 

H 

F 


848 

157 

37 


F 157 


303 
827 

23 

24 
34 

H 242 
F 153.5 
K 555 
A 58 


I 

I 

F 

F 

G 


NAME. 


Page 

Stockholm forge. 153 

Stone forge.. . 211 

Stonedam forge.198 

Stone Wall furnace . 64 

Stoney Brook forge.154 

Stony Dale forge. 173 

Stroup'8 forge . 192 

Stroup’s forge. 195 

Sufferns forge . 151 

Sufferns forge. 151 

Sufferns R. M. 227 

Susan furnace .. 76 

Susanna forge . 172 

Suwannee furnace.228 

Swede furnace. 12 


121 

F 53 

Swedeland forge. 

. 158 

3 

J 201 

Swift’s R. M. 

. 258 

104 

100 

248 

151 

152 

K 639 

T 

Taburg lurnace. 

Talcott’s forge . . 

.144 

201 

C 

6 

. 148 

88 

H 468.5 

Tallmadge furnace . 

. 112 

108 

F 151 

Tamaqua forge. 

. 172 

170 

H 171 

Taylor furnace. 

. 65 

23 

H 275 

Tellico furnace. 

. 81 

178 

I 386 

Tellico forge. 

. 202 

44 

I 477 

3'ennessee forge. 

. 214 

258 

K 589 

Tennessee furnace . 

. 135 

6 

J 206 

Tennessee R. M. 

. 259 

34 

H 429 

Texas furnace . 

. 105 

76 

A 38 

Thomas Iron Co. furnace 

. 8 

158 

G 66 

Thorndale It. M.. 

. 282 

163 

H 468.1 

Tilden’s furnace 

. 112 

169 

H 393 

Tippecanoe furnace .... 

. 100 

180 

I 295 

Toe River forge.. 

.191 

198 

II 234 

Tom's Creek furnace ... 
Tower’s furnace. 

. 75 

203 

K 625 

. 141 

82 

G 50 

Treaty R. M. . . 

. 230 

155 

G 12S 

Tredegar R. M. 

.244 

163 

II 452 

Tremont furnace... 

. 108 

168 

D 10 

Tremont R. M. 

. 221 

108 

G 43 

Trenton R. M. 

. 228 

60 

H 178 

Trout Run furnace . 

. 66 

166 

F 42 

Troy forge. 

. 155 

13 

E 149.6 

Tuckahoe furnace . 

...... 62 

86 

I 282 

Tumbling Shoals’ forge... 

. 190 

188 

I 255 

Tunnel forge. 

. 186 

165 

C 21 

Tupper'8 forge . 

. 151 

5 

I 486 

Turnbull forge . 

Turner’s forge . 

.216 

18 

F 32 

. 153 

99 

I 405 

Turnpike forge. . 

. 204 

125 

H 468.2 

Tuscarawas furnace ... 

. 112 

256 

I 465 

Twelvepole forge . 

. 213 

14 

F 182 

Tyrone forge. 

.176 

97 

B 

3 

Tyson’s furnace. 


213 

123 

150 

151 

34 

D 32 

* u 

Ulster R. M. ... . 

.226 

143 

K 554 

Underwood furnace _ 

. 128 

14.3 

I 201 

Union forge. 

.179 

144 

I 212 

Union forge. 

. 181 

212 

I 226 

Union forge . 

. 182 


I 254 

I 476 
F 131 
A 113 

164 
248 
H 262 

II 307 
H 430 
H 507 


II 

H 


Union forge.186 

Union forge 214 

Union forge.169 

Union furnace. 22 

Union furnace. 64 

Union furnace .... 77 

Union f urnace . 80 

Union furnace. .... 87 

Union furnace . 105 

Union furnace . 119 


















































































































































INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY 


XXIX 


§ ^ 

NAME. 





• 

U 


K 577 

Union turn ace . 

Page 

A 82 

Union Deposit furnace. 

.. 16 

I 430 

Upper Black Brook forge. 

... 203 

I 350 

Upper Carter forge . 


I 433 

Upper Clintonville forge . 

.. 209 

F 55 

Upper Longwood forge. 

... 157 

I 437 

Upper Norrisville forge. 


I 496 

Utah forge .... 



V 


I 490 

Valle forge. 


F 53 

Valley forge........ 


F 144 

Valley forge. 


I 481 

Valley forge. 


H 297 

Valley A furnace . 


11 804 

Valley B furnace. 


H 331 

Valley C furnace. 


H 426 

Valley furnace . 


E 78 

Valley furnace. 


I 202 

Valley forge. 


I 224 

Valiev forge. 


I 324 

Valley forge. 


G 72 

Valley R. M. 


H 1S2 

Van Buren furnace. 

... 67 

H 416 

Van Buren furnace . 

... 103 

B 14 

Vandusen ville furnace. 

... 2S 

F 79 

Verree’s forge. 

... 161 

11 425 

Venango furnace . 


II 468 

Vermilion furnace . 


H 199 

Vesuvius furnace.. . 

... 70 

11 232 

Vesuvius furnace. 

... 75 


H 505 Vesuvius furnace.119 

J 168 Vesuvius R. M.251 

G 71 Viaduct R. M. 238 

H 431 Victoria furnace,... .105 

E 645 Vic toria f urnace . 42 

H 479 Vinton furnace.114 

H 290 Virginia furnace. 84 

J 188 Virginia R. M. 255 

H 466 Volcano furnace.Ill 

H 174 Vulcan furnace. 66 


W 


I 451 Waddington force .211 

H 456 Wampum Run furnace.109 

I 336 Wagner’s forge. 196 

I 335 Warden's forge . .196 

I 337 Ward’s forge. 196 

I 333 Ward’s No. 1, 2 forge. 196 

I 471 Ward's forge .214 

I 830 Ware and Bens'n'8 forge .195 

F 146 Warren forge. 171 

E SO Warren furnace. 46 

E 58 Warwick furnace. 40 

F 52 Washington forge.157 

F 169 Washington forge.174 

E 113 Washington furnace. 53 

II 330 Washington furnace . 90 

II 496 Washington furnace. . 117 

II 899 Washington furnace. 101 

K 586 Washington furnace .134 

J 187 Washington R. M.255 

I 483 Water forge.215 

I 360 Waterloo forge.199 

E 42 Wawayanda furnace. 36 

J 161 Wayne R. M. 250 

H 428 Webster furnace .105 




5? ^ NAME. 


B 25 Weed’s furnace. 31 

K 633 Wegatchie furnace.148 

F 149 IVeisport forge. 171 

G 87 Weisport R. M. 236 

H 327 Wellersburg furnace. 89 

F 78 Welsh’s forge. 160 

G 116 West Amwell It. M. 241 

J 150 Western Tack R. M.248 

I 453 Westfdd forge .212 

C 2 Westfo-d i irge. 147 

H 165 West-fork furnace. 65 

H 300 West fork, furnace . . 86 

I 412 West Fort Ann forge.205 

I 447 Weston forge.211 

C 19 W est Point forge.150 

I 459.8 West Point forge.213 

I 421 Westport forge. 207 

D 11 Weweantit R. M.. 221 

D 6 Weymouth R. M.220 

E 149.5 Weymouth furnace . ... 62 

I 422 Whallonsburg forge. 207 

H 309 Wharton furnace . 87 

I 487 White-bluff forge . 216 

G 58 White Marsh R. M.231 

C 10 White’s forge... 149 

II 229 White's furnace . 74 

H 266 While's furnace . 80 

I 247 White's forge .185 

I 357 White's forge .199 

B 34 White’s Dover furnace. 33 

F 117 White-rock forge. 167 

H 378 Wild Cat furnace . 97 

I 423 Wilder’s forge. 207 

H 224 Wilkinson's furnace _ .. 74 

I 229 Wilkinson’s 1 forge. 188 

I 228 Wilkinson' s2 forge . 183 

A 63 William Penn furnace. 13 

A 106 Williamsburg furnace. 21 

II 453 Willie Roy furnace.108 

I 236 Wilkinson’s 3 forge.184 

1 425 Willsboro’ forge. 207 

G 111 Wilmington R. M.240 

E 130.5 Winchester furnace . 57 

F 36 Windham forge. 154 

F 110 Windsor forge. 166 

H 360 Winfield furnace. 94 

K 643 Wolcott furnace.145 

E 38.5 Woodbury furnace . 84 

H 295 Woodgrove furnace. 85 

F 122 Woodstock forge.167 

C 8.6 Wooster’s forge.149 

K 593 Worley furnace.135 

J 216 Wyandotte R. M. 260 

A 10S Wyoming furnace. 21 


Y 


I 4S0 Yellow Creek forge.215 

K 580 Yellow Creek furnace. .... 133 

E 67 York furnace. 43 

H 487 Young America furnace. 116 


Z 

H 478 Zaleski furnace.114 

H 172 Zane’s furnace. 65 

J 179 Zanesville R. M.253 

H 468.3 Zoar furnace .112 




























































































































INDEX TO PERSONAL NAMES 


\ 




Note.— All names on pages 1-146 relate to furnaces. 

All names on pages 147-218 relate to forges. 

All names on pages 219-262 relate to rolling mills. 

Corrections for subsequent editions are earnestly requested, and may be addressed to the 
office of the American Iron Association Box Philadelphia Post Office. 


A 

Abbott, 13, 238, 243. 
Adams, 54, 55, 98, 150. 
Adcock, 113. 

Adkins, 186- 
Agnew, S9. 

Ahern, 49. 

Aikins, 200. 

Ainsworth, 147. 
Alexander, 72, 127, 128, 
182, 191, 200. 
Alger, 3, 147. 

Allen, 172, 201. 

Alter, 93. 

Amerine, 194, 202. 
Ames, 36, 150. 
Anderson, 63, 70, 73, 
105. 

Andrews, 145. 

Archer, 244. 

Armstrong, 144. 

Arnold, 98. 

Atcheson, 255. 

Atkins, 10. 

Atkinson, 84. 

Austin, 115. 


15 

Bailey, 137, 217, 234, 
237, 250, 255. 
Bailiss, 133. 

Bair, 43. 

Baird, 125, 244, 254. 
Baker, 59, 86, 91, 116, 
157, 165. 

Bales, 185, 186. 

Balliot, 9, 37, 171. 
Baldwin, 87. 

Ballou, 191. 

Balsbaugh, 16. 

Bange, 4. 

Banford, 164, 235. 
Barber. 252. 

Barksdale, 132. 

Barnitz, 60. 

Barnum, 28. 

Barr, 97, 123, 126. 
Bartlett, 113. 

Barton, 52 
Battles, 110. 

Baxter, 134, 216. 

Beale, 232. 

Beam, 189. 

Beason, 256. 

Beaver, 15, 22,170,171. 


Bech, 3. 

Beckwith, 152. 

Beckley, 28. 

Been, 65. 

Behm, 45. 

Bell, 57, 58, 95,125,135, 
176, 177, 179, 216. 
Benedict, 32. 

| Benner, 114. 

J Benson, 11,195. 

! Bentley, 114, 117. 
j Benton, 144. 

; Berry, 126, 140, 197. 
Bertolet, 163, 235. 
Beshore, 252. 

Bettle, 21 
Bevens, 216. 

Biddle, 156. 

Biggs, 125. 

Bill, 182. 

Bimpson, 118. 

Bingham, 164, 215. 
Bishop, 78, 118. 

Bissell, 250. 

Blair, 80, 81, 183, 246. 
Black, 156, 250. 
Blackwood, 187. 

Blake, 25. 

Blandon, 254. 

Blandy, 256. 

Blight, 165. 

Bobo, 75, 245. 

Bogue, 142. 

Bolles, 117. 

Bonnell, 253. 

Borden, 223. 

Bostick, 131. 

Bowen, 113. 

Bowman, 9. 

Bowers, 46, 171. 

Boyd, 221. 

Boyer, 169. 

Boyd, 41, 119. 

Boyle, 15. 

Boynton, 210. 

Bradley, 63, 70, 136 
Brantley, 195. 

Brebard, 75, 188. 
Breitenbach, 18. 

Breith, 258. 

Brewster, 45,171, 209. 
Bridge, 130. 

Brice, 86. 

Brigham 133, 209. 
Briggs, 140, 188, 245. 
Brinton, 4. 

Brockway, 209. 
Brookfield, 228. 


Brooke, 39, 52, 65, 165, 
178, 234, 235. 
Brown, 36, 66, 74, 95, 
102, 185,201, 250, 252, 
253. 

Brownfield, 88. 
Browden, 130. 

Bruce, 139. 

I Brunner, 238. 

Bryan, 16, 131, 181. 
Buck, 12. 

Buchanan, 100, 191. 
Buckingham, 112. 
Buckley, 11, 40, 161, 
165, 230. 

Budd, 160. 

Bulkley, 166. 

Bundy, 114, 115. 
Burden, 226. 

Burns, 73. 

Burnet, 183, 249. 
Burnish, 236. 

Burnum, 149. 
Burroughs, 47, 58, 178, 
240. 

Burt, 1. 

Burtt, 139. 

Burwell, 124. 

Bush, 67. 

Bushong, 79. 

Butler, 165, 204. 

Byerly, 159. 

Bymun, 191. 


C 

Caldwell, 96, 205. 

Camp, 195. 

Campbell, 29, 117, 118, 
120, 254, 256. 
Canfield, 30, 150- 
Carmell, 47. 

Care, 42. 

Carnog, 165. 

Carter, 79, 80, 172, 198, 
199. 

Cartwright, 27. 

Carson, 191. 

Caruthers, 136. 

Cary, 50. 

Case, 99, 113, 236. 
Casky, 161. 

Cass, 19S, 212. 

Castner, 61. 

Catron, 183. 
Chamberlain, 158. 
Chambers, 190. 
Clieatem, 136. 


Cheney, 87. 

Chess, 248. 

Childs, 109, 123, 138. 
Chillon, 253. 

Chittenden, 211. 
Chouteau, 259. 
Christman, 164, 227. 
Church, 173. 

Churchill, 115, 246. 
Clabaugh, 79. 

Clark, 50,114, 119, 258. 
Click, 200. 

Clingman, 214. 

Cloud, 166. 

Clowe, 178. 

Clyman, 39. 

Cobb, 128,131,132,155, 
204, 214. 

Coffin, 28, 50, 219. 

Cole, 198. 

Coleman, 16,17, 41, 42, 
167,169, 172 213, 
238, 250, 258. 

Coles, 119. 

Collins, 13, 89. 

Colwell, 13, 252. 

Colvin, 117. 

Comer, 203. 

Conner, 128. 

Cook, 132, 193, 215. 
Cooper, 77, 175, 187, 
228, 246. 

Corbet, 96. 

Corcoran, 260. 
Cornelius, 72. 

Corning, 226. 

Corns, 261. 

Cowell, 116 
Cox, 184. 

Craige, 241. 

Crane, 155. 

Crandell, 111. 

Crapser, 211. 

Craven, 82, 83, 204. 
Crawford, 60, 93, 108, 
109, 110, 120, 250, 253. 
Cresson, 13. 

Crocker, 222, 

Croker, 219. 

Cross, 102,104. 
Crowther, 108, 109. 
Crumley, 199. 

Crutcher, 135. 
Culbertson, 119, 122. 
Cummings, 88, 89. 
Curry, 194. 

Curtin, 54, 239. 

Curtis, 107. 












xxxii INDEX TO PERSONAL NAMES. 


D 

Dagon, 82. 

Daily, 151. 

Dalzell, 251. 

Damarin, 114. 
Dangerfield, 258. 
Daniels, 115, 191. 
Danks, 244. 

Dannar, 113. 

Danvers, 151. 

Darling, 40, 75, 245. 
Darragh, 255. 

Darrah, 163. 

Davey, 149, 225. 

Davis, 103, 181, 254. 
Davison, 122. 

Day, 27,158. 160. 

Dean, 60, 72. 

Dearborn, 147. 
Decamp, 153, 227. 
Decker, 154. 

Dempsey, 105, 119, 122. 
Dennis, 114. 

Dewees, 232. 

Dewey, 255. 

Dewitt, 19. 

Dick, 136. 

Dicker, 158. 

Dickson, 134, 154. 
Dickinson, 86 . 

Diemer, 51. 

Dixon, 155, 1S9. 
Dockray, 192. 

Donald, 70. 

Dorsey, 243. 

Douglass, S4, 246, 260. 
Downing, 139. 

Dowlin, 165 
Drakeley, 255. 

Drury, 111. 

Duard, 173. 

Dudley, 252. 

Augger, 197. 

‘Duncan, 61,87,177,178. 
Dungan, 114. 

Dunmore, 28. 
Dunnington, 63. 
Dupuis, 146. 

Durber, 227. 

Dutcher, 82. 

Dyer, 89. 


E 

Eagle, 15. 

Early, 16 169. 

Earles, 154. 

Easley, 136. 

Eaton, 109. 

Eckert, 11, 15. 

Edds, 185. 

Edwards, 31. 

Ege, 48, 169. 

Eifurt, 125. 

Ellicott, 48, 49, 85. 
Ellison, 118, 119, 122. 
Emory, 204. 

England, 204. 

Erb, 14. 

Essington, 212. 

Etting, 18. 

Evans, 100, 103„ 116, 
146, 214, 253, 257. 
Everson, 212, 249. 


F 

Faber, 102. 
Fagely, 243. 
Fairbanks, 223. 
Fallon, 53, 93. 


Fannen, 201. 

Farmer, 205. 

Farner, 182. 

Fairer, 67. 

Farr, 13. 

Fawcett, 213. 

Fegely, 168. 

Fell, 136. 

Felsom, 212. 

Fenton, 255. 

Fetzer, 102. 

Fichter, 157, 158. 

Field, 223. 

Fincher, 51. 

Firman; 52. 

Fisher, 18, 213, 237. 
Fisler, 232, 233. 

Fitch, 31. 

Fleming, 170. 

Floyd, 252. 

Foley, 237. 

Foltz, 108. 

Foot, 3. 

Forbes, 177, 208. 

Ford, 77, 153, 154. 
Forney,17. 

Forrer, 68 , 69, 180, 181. 
Foster, 33. 

Fout, 202. 

Freeland, 152. 

French, 145, 148. 
Frederick, 179. 
Froneberger, 189. 
Fuller, 5, S 8 , 110, 143, 
212 , 228. 
Fullington, 205. 

Fulton, 13. 

G 

Gage, 147. 

Gale, 140. 

Gallagher, 60. 

Gardner, 59, 175. 

Gay, 1. 

Gaylord, 257. 

Geary, 63, 180. 

Geddes, 22. 

Geiger, 14. 

Gentry, 130. 

George, 152, 195. 
Gibbons, 241. 

Gibbs, 221. 

Gilease, 66 . 

Gillespie, 197, 247. 
Gingrich, 16. 

Glenn, 49, 63, 81. 
Gliddon, 120, 121, 122. 
Godsy, 199. 

Gogan, 219. 

Golding, 186. 

Golliday, 136. 

Goode, 78. 

Goodrich,’ 136. 

Gord, 60, 194. 

Gordon, 204. 

Gorgas, 73. 

Gould, 121. 

Gowring, 190. 

Graft, 18, 90, 213, 249. 
Graham, 73, 74, 1S3, 
244. 

Granger, 26. 

Gratton, 116. 

Gray, 227. 

Green, 24, 47, 56, 115, 
175. 

Gregg, 53, 239. 

Gvidley, 82. 

Grier, 110. 

Griesemer, 254. 


Griffen, 12, 232. 
Griswold, 3, 225. 
Grove, 19, 20, 237. 
Grubb, 14, 41, 42. 
Gruff, 94. 

Gulick, 94, 289. 


If 

Hagans, 84. 

Hahn, 43,167. 

Hailman, 250. 

Hairston, 64,182. 
Haldeman, 15, 56, 230. 
Hale, 196. 

Hall, 81, 90, 216, 221. 
Halsted, 157. 

Hammer, 172. 
Hamilton, 55, 118, 119, 
122 . 

Hampton, 91. 
Hammerskold, 188. 
Hancock, 237. 

Hanna, 89. 

Hard, 63. 

Hardman, 85. 

Hartman, 212, 249, 255. 
Hardaway, 259. 
Hardbarger, 204. 
Harden, 191. 

Hare, 210. 

Harkaday, 196. 

Harlan, 242. 

Harper, 201. 

Harrigan, 230. 

Harris, 145. 

Harrison, 84, 138, 158, 
259. 

Harwood, 206. 

Harvey, 140,242. 

Hass, 152. 

Hassell, 128. 

Haslett, 98, 112. 
Hatfield, 175, 233, 240. 
Hawes, 47. 

Hawkins, 193, 224. 
Haydn, 113. 

Hayden, 211, 254. 
Haynes, 145. 

Haywood, 236. 

Headley, 5. 

Heamstead, 256. 
Heaton, 110, 193, 197. 
Ileelman, 23S. 

Heilig, 162. 

Heilman, 174, 213. 
Heird, 168, 243. 
Hemphill, 60, 178. 
Henninger, 139. 
Hendrick, 145. 

Herine, 50. 

Herbst, 162. 

Hewitt, 6 , 50, 210, 228, 
243 

Hiatt, 186, 187. 
Hickman, 105. 

Hicks, 112, 225, 246. 
Higgens, 60, 178, 240. 
Hill, 195. 

Hilles, 241. 

Hilman, 129, 136, 214, 
216, 259. 

Himes, 43,167. 
Himmelschutz, 163. 
Hinchman, 228. 
Ilinnon, 193. 

Ilinsen, 192. 

Hitner, 13. 

Hobson, 187. 

Hodge, 192. 

Hodgkins, 261. 


Hoffman, 116. 
llogeland, 106. 

Hogg, 88 . 

Holdane, 36. 

Holden, 225. 
i Holler, 81. 

; llolliss, 103. 

| Hollister, 215. 

’ Hollingsworth, 12. 

; Holmes, 134, 148, 260. 

| Holman, 56. 

Holsey, 156. 

Honsinger, 209. 

Iloopes, 238. 

Hooven, 232. 

Hope, 258. 

Hopkins, 31, 42, 43. 
Horine, 243. 

Horton, 255. 

Howard, 47, 109, 185 ; 

197. 

Howell, 159. 

Hughes. 45, 60,128,170, 
/ 240. 

Huff, 156. 

Hunter, 10,39, 63, 204, 
244. 

Hunt, 29, 231. 
Huntingdon, 224 
Huntzinger, 172. 

Hurte, 126. 

Huston, 87. 

Hutchison, 216. 

I 

Illingworth, 227. 

Irey, 165. 

Irvin, 53, 130, 132, 239. 
Irvine, 181. 

Irwin, 53, 55, 56, 106, 
174 239 

Isett, 58, 60, 176, 177. 

J 

Jackson, 6 , 7, 85, 86 , 
117, 126, 128, 134. 
135, 215, 226, 258. 
Jacobs, 166. 

James, 67, 122,129,134, 
138, 213, 217, 256. 
Jamieson, 95, 166. 

Jane, 200. 

Jenkins, 47, 48,166,129. 
Jennings, 201, 255. 
Johnson, 55, 81, 91.1S5, 

191, 202, 203, 205, 

246, 256. 

Johnston, 74, 188. 
Jones, 12, 62, 78, 109, 
123, 125, 126, 133, 

192, 197, 201, 246, 
247, 250, 253, 258. 

Jordan, 70, 71, 72, 132, 
181, 182. 215, 258. 
Joralemon, 159. 

Judson, 144. 

It 

Kahl, 97. 

Kauffman, 14, 39, 52. 
Kase, 20. 

Keating, 99. 

Keller, 16, 59, 60, 66 , 

Kelly, 128,129,179, 20l! 

214, 255, 260. 
Kennedy, 130, 201. 
Kenney, 221. 

Kent, 6 . 







INDEX TO PERSONAL NAMES, 


XXX111 


Kerns, 52. 

Keyser, 186. 

Kerr, 97, 216. 

Kiernan, 180. 

Kimball, 252. 

Kimbrough, 205. 
Kilgrove, 254. 

Killinger, 169. 

Kinkaid, 154, 203. 

King, 61, 92, 94, 123, 
174,177, 178, 198, 
199. 

Kingsland, 207,211,262. 
Kingsley, 85, 205. 

Kinzer, 173. 

Kirkman, 131,135. 
Kissock, 106. 

Klingan, 40. 

Knapp, 108. 

Kneass, 230. 

Knight, 95. 

Koch, 172. 

Koons, 21, 51. 

Kramer, 22. 

Krauser, 16. 

Kullock, 222. 

Kunkle, 50. 

Kurr, 216. 

L 

Lamb, 196. 

Lampton, 124,125. 
Landis, 16. 

Landon, 29. 

Lantz, 179. 

Laremer, 104. 

Larue, 146. 

Lasley, 115. 

Lathrop, 5, 228. 

Latham, 76, 190, 245. 
Latta, 165. 

Laughlin, 95, 96. 

Lauth, 247. 

Lavvrie, 105. 

Leadbeater, 131. 
Leafferts, 5. 
Leavenworth, 145. 

Lee, 47, 96. 164, 236. 
Leibert, 230. 

Leisenring, 173. 
Lemmon, 49. 

Lemon, 59. 

Lenier, 98. 

Leonard, 223. 

Leslie, 199. 

Lewis, 46, 77, 117, 130, 
132,153, 171, 195, 
215, 251, 259. 
Light, 16, 169. 

Lightfoot, 165. 
Lippencott, 9. 

Lindsay, 204. 

Linn, 54. 

Little, 89. 

Lloyd, 59, 250, 251. 
Logan, 190. 
Longenecker, 16, 19. 
Longmire, 82. 

Lord, 5, 228. 

Lorenz, 175, 251. 

Love, 81, 202. 

London, 147. 
Lovingood, 192. 

Low rie, 205. 

Lukens, 231, 233. 

Lum, 142. 

Lyman, 10, 29. 

Lynch, 260. 

Lytle, 60, 178. 

Lyon, 58, 73, 175, 176, 


OT 

McAlister, 60. 

McArthur, 122. 

McBride, 174. 

McCahen, 56. 

McCalmont, 105. 
McCamont, 176. 

McCarty, 230, 235. 
McClure, 136, 172. 
McCollum, 212, 261. 
McConkey, 165, 234. 
McConnell, 117. 

McCoon, 137. 

McCormick, 16, 61,177, 
252. 

McCoy, 54, 239. 

McCrea, 96. 

McCullough, 120, 242. 
McCutcheon, 95, 248. 
McDaniel, 215, 241. 
McDonald, 133. 
McDowell, 9, 21. 

McFall, 133, 259. 
McFarlane, 157. 
McFarland, 228. 

McGee, 179. 

McGrew, 123. 

McGugin, 118. 

McGuire, 102. 

Mcllvaine, 165, 235. 
McKarty, 164. 

McKay, 83. 

McKean, 114. 

McKelvy, 20. 
McKiernan, 68, 134, 

135, 215. 

McKim, 100. 

McKinney, 23, 53, 91, 
174, 238. 
McKnight, 248. 
McCoons, 46. 

McLain, 111. 

McLean, 203. 

McManus, 11,235. 
McMickle, 95. 

McMillen, 190. 
McMurtrie, 123. 

McNab, 191. 

McNew, 203. 

McNeal, 57. 

McNeil, 93. 

McNichol, 213, 257. 
McWilliams, 193. 
Madard, 61. 

Magee, 65. 

Mahew, 67. 
Malonschaffer, 162. 
Manning, 243. 

Marsh, 22. 

Marshall, 27, 78, 230, 
241, 249. 

Marteen, 34. 

Marston, 67. 

Marten, 62, 186. 
Maroony, 136. 

Mason, 126. 

Mathiot, 89. 

Mathews, 92, 170. 
Matthew, 44. 

Mauk, 200. 

Means, 114, 119, 120, 
122, 124, 213. 
Medara, 174. 

Merkel, 39, 168. 
Meredith, 199. 
Merchant. 210. 
Merriam, 207. 

Merrill, 140. 

Merritt, 4. 

Michaels, 191. 
Middlesworth, 52. 


Miller, 12,13,67, 69, 82, 
86, 9 r, 180, 191, 23S, 
250. 

Milner, 78. 

Miltonberger, 88. 
Mitchell, 93, 118, 161, 
194, 224, 229. 
Minor, 133. 

Montgomery, 64, 76, 
190, 205, 245. 
Mooney, 17. 

Moore, 59, 76, 99,112, 
113,150. 

Morehead, 12, 247. 
Morely, 196. 

Morgan, 18, 161, 237. 
Morris, 78, 159, 194. 
Morriss, 244. 

Morrell, 91, 92, 247. 
Mosgrove, 95. 

Mowell, 48. 

Moyer, 162. 

Mullen, 63, 164, 235. 
Mulley, 45. 

Mulligan, 259. 

Mundon, 3. 

Murdock, 4,196. 

Murfin, 115, 121, 122, 
257. 

Murchison, 191. 
Murkels, 88. 

Murphy, 197. 

Murray, 110. 
Musselman, 15, 60. 
Myers, 15, 67, 179, 210, 


N 

Napier, 135, 216. 

Nave, 198. 

Neal, 20. 

Neff, 60. 

Nelson, 185, 200, 213. 
Newkirk, 115. 

Newlee, 81. 

Newell, 130,131. 
Newman, 68 85, 179. 
Newmyer, 213. 

Newson, 116. 

Newton, 70. 

Nichol, 144. 

Nichols, 125, 157, 184, 
229. 

Nickson, 250. 

Nimmo, 227. 

Nimson, 172. 

Noble, 206. 

Nock, 224. 

Nolin, 214. 

Noonan, 45. 

Norris, 161, 209. 

Norton, 255. 

Nye, 221. 

O 

Oliphant, 247, 250. 

P 

Painter, 97, 165, 249, 
250. 

Palmer, 25. 

Pancoast, 65, 66, 179. 
Parke, 167, 241. 

Parker, 89. 

Parmenter, 206. 

Parish, 142, 215. 
Parrott, 5, 38. 
Partridge, 262. 
Patterson, 12. 127, 161, 
217, 242. 

Patton, 72, 73, 79. 


Pauli, 88, 90, 122, 213, 
247. 

Paxton, 20. 

Pease, 137. 

Pearson, 151, 226. 

Peck, 70, 143, 212. 
Penfield, 206. 

Pennock, 166, 233, 234. 
Penniman, 83. 

Penn, 183. 

Pennepacker, 232. 
Penrose, 14, 233. 

Peobles, 119. 

Pepper, 186. 

Perry, 84, 85, 260. 

Peters, 116, 117, 118, 
254, 256. 

Phelps, 27. 

Phillips, 131, 132, 220, 
222, 246, 258. 
Phinney, 22, 236. 

Phrener, 45. 

Pierce, 107,183,199. 
Pierson, 226. 

Pingree, 25. 

Plain, 187. 

Platt, 210. 

Plummer, 99,103. 
Plunket, 230. 

Pollock, 110, 111. 
Polsgrove, 45, 171. 
Pomeroy, 32, 149. 

Pool, 77, 79, 193. 

Pope, 69. 

Porter, 16, 110, 146, 

248. 

Postley, 213. 

Post, 148. 

Potts, 40, 162, 234. 

Power, 109. 

Powers, 185. 

Powell, 116, 256. 

Pratt, 22, 238. 

Prescott, 147. 

Preston, 63, 185, 212, 

249. 

Prewitt, 217. 

Prior, 260. 

Pritchell, 130. 

Price, 107. 

Pugh. 256. 

Purser, 83. 

Putnam, 206, 207. 
Purmort, 208. 

Q, 

Quimby, 3. 

R 

Rabineau, 140. 

Ragan, 194. 

Rambler, 15. 

Rankin, 100. 

Rausch, 236. 

Ray, 27. 

Raybure, 130. 
Raymond, 104. 

Raynor, 259. 

Reber, 52. 

Reed, 2, 104, 105, 106, 
117, 145, 147. 
Reeves, 12, 13, 19, 23, 
48, 238, 247. 
Reinhardt, 74. 
Rensselaer, 142. 
Renton, 153, 227. 
Reynolds, 20, 54, 96, 
100, 105, 167, 175, 
194. 

Rex, 78. 

Rhey, 90, 92. 


















XXXIV 


INDEX TO PERSONAL NAMES 


Rhoads, 112,124. 
Richardson, 19, 28, 62, 
109, 208, 261. 
Richards, 62, 66, 288. 
Richter, 154, 155, 156, 
227. 

Ricker, 115, 116. 

Rider, 145. 

Riddell, 194. 

Rirasel, 168. 

Rincker, 179. 

Ritchie, 96, 105. 
Rittenhouse, 162. 

Rixby, 145. 

Robb, 204. 

Robson, 114. 

Robeson, 11. 

Robison, 110. 

Robinson, 87, 105, 121, 
147. 

Robbins, 30, 150, 229. 
Roberts, 161, 1S9, 231. 
Robertson, 134. 
Robichon, 146. 

Rodgers, 247. 

Rogers, 46, 88, 119, 122, 
123, 208, 256, 262. 
Rolf, 248. 

Roman, 51. 

Root, 111. 

Rose, 82, 159. 

Ross, 121, 124,153,181, 
208, 207, 261. 
Rowland, 161, 229, 231. 
Royer, 114, 176, 240. 
Russell, 124, 134, 220. 
Rutledge, 176. 
ltyerson, 35, 152. 

S 

Salmon, 160. 

Salters, 209, 262. 
Sanders, 183, 184. 
Sardan, 143. 

Saunders, 64, 182. 
Scollard, 103. 

Schall, 12, 162, 163, 
172, 231, 232. 
Schmucker, 178, 240. 
Schoch, 170. 

Schock, 44. 

Scott, 94, 118, 138, 234, 
Scovill, 29. 242. 

Scranton, 22, 36. 
Sealley, 249. 

Searles, 254. 

Seaton, 122. 

Seibert, 67. 

Seidel, 163, 164,169. 
Seely, 11S. 

Sellars, 139. 

Sennet, 108. 

Sevank, 161. 

Sewell, 176. 

Seyffart, 11. 

Seyfert, 164, 168, 235. 
Seymour, 8, 148. 
Shaeffer, 14, 174. 
Shalter, 39. 

Shanks, 72. 

Sharp, 203, 204. 

Shaw, 69. 

Sheetz, 18. 

Sheffler, 57, 170. 
Sheldon, 220. 

Sherman, 159. 

Shields, 81. 

Shippen, 99, 103, 105. 
Shipley, 200. 
Shoenberger, 55, 60, 91, 
175, 177, 240, 250. 


Shorb, 58,175,176, 248. 
Short, 204. 

Shufler, 169. 

Shuman, 51,178. 

Shreve, 213, 257. 
Sigmund, 38. 

Simmons, 226. 

Simpel, 168, 250. 
Simpson, 61. 

Singer, 212, 249. 

Sinton, 119, 120, 146. 
Skelton, 185. 

Skinner, 142, 211. 

Slade, 160. 

Slimp, 196. 

Sloat, 44, 170. 

Small, 46. 

Smallwood, 193. 

Smith, 27, 40, 62, 81, 
94, 110, 152, 155, 159, 
162, 188, 198, 219, 
230, 233, 241, 242, 
253, 260. 
Snapp, 199, 201. 

Snell, 164, 235. 

Snyder, 87, 173. 

Spang, 163, 251. 

Sparks, 120. 

Spaulding, 112, 123. 
Spear, 91. 

Spearman, 107. 

Spence, 134. 

Spellman, 121. 

Spillman, 192. 

Sprague, 221. 

Sproul, 166, 167. 
Spurrier, 243. 

Stacker, 130,134, 135. 
Stanborough, 158, 228 
Stannard, 105. 

Stark, 147. 

Stenger, 170. 

Steel, 133, 167, 215, 257. 
Steele, 233. 

Stephens, 150,160. 
Sterling, 15, 33, 143, 
144 249. 

Stetson, 118, 220. 
Stevens, 44.170, 257. 
Steward, 109. 

Stewart, 81, 53, 87, 108, 
114, 144, 146, 175, 
176, 2ol, 229, 251, 
260. 

Stickel, 155, 156. 

Stiles, 192. 

Stocks, 77. 

Stoddart, 210. 

Stout, 196. 

Stover, 198. 

Stroup, 195. 

Strong, 161. 

Strockh, 163. 

Strait, 157. 

Stroup, 78. 

St. Lyon, 159. 

Sturgess, 256. 

Sturgiss, 22. 
Summinger, 113. 

Sutton, 159. 

Swan, 189. 

Swett, 248. 

Swift, 258. 

Swinney, 168. 

T 

Taggert, 52. 

Talcott, 148. 

Tanner, 90, 244. 

Tarr, 114, 173. 

Tate, 1S3, 244. 


Taylor, 78, 168, 172, 
255 

Temple, 156, 157. 
Terrell, 258. 

Terry, 116. 

Thayer, 27. 

Thoburn, 86. 

Thompson, 54, 55, 93, 
115, 141, 164, 191, 
202, 205, 260. 
Thomas, 8, 54, 76, 135, 
198, 203, 240, 260. 
Thorndike, 111. 

Tier, 160. 

Tilden, 112. 

Tinsley, 135. 

Tipton, 246. 

Tisdale, 222. 

Tod, 110, 112, 254. 
l'olman, 223. 

Tomlinson, 180. 
Toneray, 65. 

Torrance, 127. 

Town, 4. 

Townley, 130. 
Townsend, 34. 

Tower, 141. 

Tracy, 117. 

Trauter, 257. 

Treadway, 197. 

Trexler, 38, 162. 
Trimble, 123, 125. 
Triplett, 244. 

Trotter, 202. 
Trowbridge, 217. 
Trueauff, 171. 

Tucker, 178. 
Tuckerman, 226. 
Tugnot, 151. 

Tupper, 151. 

Turner, 153, 216. 
Twitty, 191. 

Tyson, 25, 50. 

U 

Uhlman, 103. 

Umbles, S6. 

V 

Valentines, 54, 240. 
Valle, 259. 

Vanalstine, 140. 
Vandyke, 123. 

Vanleer, 134, 135. 

Van Voorhees, 5. 
Varnum, 251. 

Verree, 161, 229. 

Victor, 88. 

Voorhees, 218. 
Vreeland, 35. 

AV 

Waddle, 201. 
Wadsworth, 219. 

Wade, 244. 

Wagner, 196. 

Wainwright, 230. 
Walker, 45, 88, 123, 
128, 134, 137, 192, 
206. 

Wallace, 106, 107. 
Walters, 114. 

Ward, 106, 123, 196, 
214, 253, 260, 261. 
Warder, 196. 

Warden, 106. 

Ware, 79, 194, 195. 
Waring, 122. 

Washburn, 223. 
Waston, 205. 


Weston, 211. 

Watkins, 125. 

Watson, 56, 59, 62, 129, 
130, 139. 

■Watts, 15, 44, 169. 
Wattenan, 104. 

Way, 261. 

Weaver, 71, 72, 181. 
Webster, 113. 

Webb, 120. 

Weed, 2, 31. 

Wegton, 57. 

Weidman, 169. 

Weiss, 162, 171, 236. 
Welcher, 79. 

Wellford, 63. 

Welsh, 160. 

Wentz, 236. 

Wernet, 248. 

West, 65, 133. 

Westler, 173. 

| Westwood, 258. 
Wharton, 43, 44. 
Whallon, 206, 207. 
Wheeler, 2, 111, 126, 
206. 

White, 11, 33, 59, 74, 
91, 122, 128, 185, 217, 
260. 

Whitman, 86. 
Whittaker, 6, 23, 46. 
Wick, 104. 

Wicks, 224. 

Wilber, 237. 

Wilcox, 133. 

Wilder, 207. 

Wilks, 141. 

Wilkeson, 111, 112. 
Wilkins, 108. 

Wilkinson, 74, 188, 254 
Willard, 118. 

Williams, 121, 183, 200, 

210 . 

Willis, 18, 86, 154, 227. 
Wilson, 67, 72, 86, 100, 
120, 125, 151, 175, 
179, 184, 193, 226, 
248. 

Winter, 151, 227. 
Winslow, 226. 

Wisler, 167, 179. 

Wister, 237. 

Wolf, 138. 

Wolff, 258. 

Woltwater, 224. 

Wood, 15, 19, 62, 91, 
* 231, 241, 247, 249. 
Woods, 88, 132, 215, 
259 

Woodruff, 141, 213. 
Woodrow, 120. 
Woodward, 255. 
Wooster, 149. 

Worth, 191, 233. 
Worthington, 87, 257. 
Wright, 14, 56, 62, 173. 
Wurtz, 123, 125, 213. 
Wutz, 126. 

Wylie, 87. 

Y 

Yancey, 63. 

Yeakle, 50, 243. 

Yeager, 68. 

Yokum, 163. 


Z 

Zabriskie, 261. 
Zimmerman, 183. 
Zug, 249, 250. 














PART I. 


THE IRON MANUFACTURER’S GUIDE 


TO THE FURNACES, FORGES, AND ROLLING MILLS OF THE 

UNITED STATES. 


<**» 


TABLE A. 

ANTHRACITE BLAST FURNACES IN THE UNITED STATES. 

1. 2. Berkshire Anthracite Steam Ironworks, near the 
West Stockbridge Railroad Station, Berkshire county, Massa¬ 
chusetts, Gay & Burt, owners; an incorporated company. Two 
furnaces; No. 1, built in 1853,12 feet bosh, 32 feet high. No. 2, 
built 1857, 16 x41. The mines are five to seven miles distant, 
and furnish brown hematite. No. 1 furnace produced, in 1855, 
4,612J tons hot-blast iron. 

The iron making district of Western New England embraces 
Berkshire county, Massachusetts, the northwest of Litchfield 
county, Connecticut, and the east of Columbia and Dutchess 
counties, New York. The ore is a brown hematite, deposited in 
clay and gravel banks, along fissures and hollows in the lower 
Silurian Limestone, near its inferior limit, in lines parallel with 
the Highlands, Berkshire, or Green Mountains. These are dif¬ 
ferent names for the same range. Some of the hematite de¬ 
posits have been wrought since before the revolutionary war, 
and have yielded a hundred thousand tons of washed ore 
without showing signs of exhaustion. The rock ore is not 
washed. Roasting is now practised only by a few cold-blast 
charcoal furnaces. Subterranean mining has also been aban- 

1 Table A 



2 TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF NEW ENGLAND. 

doned, and open quarrying or stripping is the only method 
now employed. The ores obtained vary, of course, in quality. 
Two tons and an eighth of mixed Richmond, Shaker, and West 
Pittsfield hank ore has made a ton of iron, on an average, 
during six months. The iron made with hot-blast is soft foun¬ 
dry ; with cold-blast and charcoal, the superior forge iron known 
as Salisbury. The make of charcoal cold-blast iron would 
rapidly increase in this region but for the scarcity of fuel, a 
scarcity aggravated by the wood-burning locomotive railway 
demand. Fuel costs the charcoal furnaces about $10 50 per 
ton of iron. 

3. Stockbridge Anthracite Iron Works (Water), in 

Berkshire county, Massachusetts, have one charcoal furnace (see 
Table B, No. 12) and one anthracite furnace, 10 feet bosh, built 
in 1845, and out of blast since 1855. It used to average 7 tons 
per day for 40 weeks. 

4. Sharon Station Anthracite Steam Furnace, owned by 
Hiram "Weed & Co., Corkenstown, Dutchess county, New York, 
near the Massachusetts line, was built in 1854, 9 feet bosh, 
swelling in the cylinder to 10 feet, and 32 feet high. The 
Megat ore banks are within a stone’s cast of the furnace, an 
open quarry of loam, sand, blue clay, and brown hematite ore 
balls, shells, pipes, and mammillary masses, thrown down irregu¬ 
larly on one another, in variable quantities and qualities in level 
layers, horsebacks, and lenticular deposits, with every appear¬ 
ance of tumultuous in-washing. No bottom at 25 feet. Ame- 
nia bank is 3 miles north, and Salisbury bank northeast. 

5. Bull’s Falls Anthracite Water Furnace, four miles 
south of Kent Station, on the Housatonic Railroad, Litchfield 
county, Connecticut, owned by D. and E. Wheeler; was built in 
1826 for charcoal, 8 feet bosh, and 30 high; rebuilt in 1844, 
14 x 40, and reduced in 1857 to 9^ x 34, because too large for its 
water power. Its former capacity 7 was 3J, its present, 8 tons per 
day. The Quakerhill and Kent ore banks are 4-^ miles west, 
and 3 miles east of it. 

6. 7. Port Henry Anthracite Furnaces, one water and 
the other steam, stand on the west shore of Lake Champlain, in 
Essex county. New York, near Old Crown Point, owned by the 
Port Henry Furnace Company, John H. Reed, of Boston, Trea- 

A 


ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF NEW YORK. 


3 


surer, and John H. Reed and W. T. Foote, Managers. Furnace 
No. 1 was built in 1847,13-J feet across the bosh, by 42 feet high, 
but little used until 1854, when it made 3,553 tons. No. 2 was 
built in 1854, of boiler iron, on cast iron columns, 16x46. 
Both furnaces produced, in 1856 9,730 tons, from magnetic ore 
from the Cheever mine, 1J miles northwest of the furnaces, and 
near the lake. This grand bed of ore, and another of nearly 
twice its thickness, called the Sanford bed, 3 miles west of the 
furnace, are among the most famous magnetic iron ore mines of 
the northern States. No. 2 produced, in 40 weeks of 1857 
5,321 tons. 

8. Siscoe Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Westport, Essex 
county, New York, on the west shore of Lake Champlain, was 
built for charcoal in 1845, and began to use anthracite in 1853. 
It was rebuilt in 1856, 13 feet in the bosh, and 42 feet high, 
and made 4,200 tons of chiefly white iron from magnetic ore in 
1856. In 1857 3,741 tons in 31 weeks. 

9. Fort Edward Anthracite Furnace, using the Hudson 
River at Fort Edward,Washington county, New York, for water 
power, and owned by the Fort Edward Blast Furnace Com¬ 
pany, J. A. Griswold, of Troy, Treasurer, C. C. Alger, of Hud¬ 
son, Agent, had new machinery in 1856, and was destroyed. 
It was 18-| feet in the bosh, 50 feet high, and used Sanford 
magnetic ore for the most part, mixing it with a little fossil ore 
from Utica, and some ore from a new bed opened at Fort Anne. 

10. Clinton Anthracite Steam Furnace, nine miles west 
of Utica, Oneida county, New York, owned by S. A. Munson, of 
that place, was built near the northern outcrop of that wonderful 
Lower Silurian deposit of small shells and oxide of iron which 
underlies the whole Catskill and Alleghany Mountains, and 
comes up at Danville and Bloomsburg, on the North Branch of 
the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania; the same that is mined at 
the Cumberland Gap and elsewhere for Claibourne and other 
furnaces in Tennessee. 

11.12. Hudson Anthracite Steam Furnaces, at the south 
end of Hudson, Columbia county, New York, between the rail¬ 
road and the river bank, owned by the Hudson Iron Company, 
Sydney Seymour, Secretary, and C. C. Alger, co-owner, con¬ 
tractor, and agent, were built together in 1850, each 16 feet in 

A 



4 


TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF NEW YORK. 


the bosh, ancl 45 high, and are blown together by one large beam 
engine, weighing 100,000 lbs., with a bed plate 34 feet long. 
They made, in 1855 14,424 tons of iron, from 60 per cent, of 
West Stockbridge brown hematite, 1J- miles east of the village, 
and 40 per cent, of Fort Montgomery, or old Forest of Dean 
magnetic ore. 

13.14. Poughkeepsie Anthracite Steam Furnaces, half 

a mile below Poughkeepsie, Dutchess county, New York, on the 
Hudson Biver Bailroad, owned by the Poughkeepsie IronWorks 
Company (Been & Kuhnhardt), A. Town, manager, were built, 
the first in 1848, 13J feet across the bosh, by 43 feet high, and 
the second in 1853, at first 18, then 15 feet by 46. In 1856 they 
made 4,928 and 5,480 tons, from three-eighths Cheever magnetic, 
and five-eighths Hopewell brown hematite, 18 miles to the 
east-southeast. No 2 used one-half and one-quarter, and added 
one-quarter Utica fossil. 

15. Napanock Anthracite (water) Furnace, 25 miles 
southwest of Kingston, and on the Bondout Biver and Dela¬ 
ware and Hudson Canal at Napanock in Ulster county New 
York, owned by F. Bange and managed by M. S. Brinton, was 
built 9 feet across the boshes, by 30 feet high, and made 1,700 
tons in 39 weeks in 1856. Its ore is a peculiar, solid, dark grey, 
homogeneous ore, probably of Devonian age (No. 8 Pennsyl¬ 
vania survey), containing small geodes of sulpliuret of iron, and 
lenticular fragments of metamorphic clay slate and occasional 
markings as if of fossils, but not organic. The mine is one- 
third of a mile south of the furnace. 

' 16.5. Croton Patent Anthracite Furnace, owned by 
Nichols & Company, managed by D. L. Merrit, and designed 
to make wrought iron directly from the ore, is situated at 
Croton Landing on the North Biver just below Abram Bailey’s 
Croton upper rolling mill; went into operation July, 1857. 

16. Peekskill Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Peekskill, 
in Westchester county New York on the Hudson Biver Bail- 
road, 45 miles from New York, owned by Warren Murdock and 
others, was started in 1854, 16 feet wide across the bosh and 
44 feet high, and remained in blast about a year, averaging 
about 12 tons a day. 

A 


ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF NEW JERSEY. 


5 


17. Greenwood Furnaces, one cliarcoal (see Table E, 37) 
and t ie otlier anthracite, one driven by water and the other 
by steam, stand on the New York and Erie Railroad at Green¬ 
wood Station, Orange county New York, 44 miles from New 
York city, and are owned by Robert P. and Peter P. Parrott, 
the latter managing the works. Greenwood Furnace No. 2 was 
started July 1, 1854, 18 feet wide across the bosh by 54 feet 
high, upon magnetic ore from the Monroe town mines 4 miles 
east and west of the furnace, and is said to have made 5,000 
tons in 1855. 

18. Manhattan Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Manhat¬ 
tan ville, New York county New York, on the Hudson River 
Railroad, 6 miles north of the city, owned by Headley, Leffarts, 
Vanvoorhees & Co. and managed by M. Brock, was built in 

1854, 11 feet wide by 40 high, and made about 4,000 tons in 

1855, from Champlain magnetic and Hopewell and Amenia 
brown hematite ores. 

19. Boonton Anthracite (water) Furnace, at Boonton 
Morris county New Jersey, on the Morris Canal, 32 miles via 
canal and 18 miles via turnpike from Newark, owned by Fuller, 
Lord & Co. of New York, ~W. G. Lathrop manager, is 14 feet 
wide across the bosh and 40 feet high, and made in 1857 6,574^- 
tons from magnetic ore mined along the canal 6 to 13 miles 
west of the works. 

19.5. Stanhope Anthracite Steam and Water Furnace 

No. 1, situated with the three following at Stanhope in Sussex 
county New Jersey, half a mile northwest of the railroad 
station and on the Morris and Essex Canal, went into blast in 
1840. No. 2 and 3 furnaces followed about three years later 
and all three continued to make iron until 1852 when the 
explosion of the gas reservoir connected with the experimental 
furnace No. 4 destroyed the works. All three were between 11 
and 12 feet across the bosh, got their steam power in 1845, and 
used magnetic ore from Irondale, eight miles distant to the 
east. No. 4 furnace, built to run on Franklinite ore, was 6 or 
8 feet wide across the bosh and about 20 feet high, collecting 
the zinc fumes in large reservoirs at the tunnel head. The 
experiment made 100 tons of white, lamellar iron and soufe tons 
of zinc paint. 


A 


6 


TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


20. 21. 22. Cooper Anthracite Steam Furnaces, half a 
mile below the village of Pliilipsburg in Warren county New 
Jersey, opposite the mouth of the Lehigh at Easton in Penn¬ 
sylvania, and therefore on the Delaware River, Morris Canal and 
New Jersey Central Railroad, with full command of the brown 
hematite mines of the great valley to the north and west and of 
the rich magnetic ores of Central New Jersey to the east are 
owned by the Trenton Iron Company, Cooper & Hewitt and 
others of New York city, and managed by Joseph C. Kent. 
The three stacks stand in line and use a common blast of great 
power. Their inside dimensions vary, No. 1 being 20 x 55, No. 2, 
18 x42, and No. 3, 22 x 55 feet high. No. 1 produced, in 1855 
7,980 tons; No. 2, in 1856 7,041 tons; and No. 3, in 1855 
7,423 tons, running full time. Here the first experiments on 
this side the water were made in 1856 to test the availability 
of Bessemer’s process for blowing cold air at a high pressure 
into molten cast iron to produce malleable metal. 

23. 24, Durham Anthracite Steam Furnaces, No. 1 and 

2, in Bucks county Pennsylvania, nine miles south of Easton, and 
a short distance up the left bank of Durham Creek from its mouth 
in the Delaware River, owned by Jos. Geo. P. Jos. R. and 
Geo. W. Whitaker and W. Davis, were built, the one in 1848, 
the other in 1851. No. 1 is 13 x 40, No. 2,14 x 40. No. 1 made 
5,217 tons in 1856, and No. 2, 5,054 in 1855, working full time. 
The entrance to the magnetic ore vein, 6 feet thick, is within 300 
yards of the works; the brown hematite banks are not much 
further off, belonging to synclinal fragments of Lower Silurian 
Limestone (No. H.) engaged between the low ranges of the 
Highlands, here called the Easton and then the Reading Hills. 

25. South Hasten Anthracite Furnace (using both water 
and steam) on the south side of the Lehigh River and between 
the canal and river, one mile above its mouth at Easton, owned 
by Chas. Jackson, Jr. of Boston Massachusetts, was built in 
1845 and rebuilt in 1853, 14 feet one way and 12 feet the other 

. across the top of the bosh, 48 feet high, and made 4,677^ tons in 
1856. It uses the brown hematite deposits at the edge of No. H. 
Lower Silurian Limestone, on the north side of the Easton or 
Durham hills, and about a mile south of the Lehigh. 

26. 27. 28. The Glendon Anthracite Furnaces, Nos. 1 

A 



ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. . 7 

2, 3, situated in the same way one mile higher up than the last, 
owned also by Chas. Jackson, Jr. of Boston, and managed by 
Wm. Firmstone, stand together but were built in different 
years, 1844, ’45, and ’50, and are of different sizes. No. 2 was 
originally 10 feet but rebuilt in 1850, 14 feet one way and 12 
the other across the bosh, by 45 high. ISTo. 1, 18 + 14 wide, 
by 50 high; No. 3, 16 + 14 wide by 45 high. No. 1 uses 
water power; No. 2 and 3 use steam and water for a common 
blast. No. 1 made 6,770| tons in 1856 ; No. 3, 6,855, in 1856 ; 
No. 2 made in 52 weeks of the same year 5,537 tons. These 
furnaces use the brown hematite ores found on both sides of the 
Lehigh River in the Lower Silurian Limestone No. II. 

29.30.31.32. The Allentown Iron Company’s An¬ 
thracite Steam Furnaces, on the west side of the Lehigh 
River, one mile above Allentown in Lehigh county Pennsylva¬ 
nia and alongside of the Lehigh Yalley Railroad, rise together 
from the river plane, in the grandest and most picturesque style, 
throwing into the shade many of the castles of Europe. No 
finer object of art invites the artist. The still huger pile of 
the Crane Works on the opposite side of the river a little higher 
up is rendered less striking by the vicinity of the hills; the 
Allentown Works rise unobstructed and unrivalled by sur¬ 
rounding sights, a world of stone and iron in the air, its summit 
crowned with tall chimneys like the turrets of Caernarvon, flames 
issuing from its tunnel heads, and cars travelling up and down 
its planes, long trains of ore mules passing to and fro across 
its lofty bridges, while other trains of railroad cars wait below 
to carry off* its iron. The repose of bygone centuries seems to 
sit upon its immense walls, while the roaring energy of the 
present day fills it with a truer and better life than the revelry 
of Kenilworth or the chivalry of Heidelberg. Its archways 
conceal a perfected alchemy where the spirit of the wind con¬ 
verts earth to iron and dross to gold, condensing around this 
pile of matter a little world of intellectual and moral happiness 
and energy to which poets and statesmen might profitably travel 
to learn more than is read in books or declaimed in Congress. 

Two of these stacks are 12 feet wide and two are 16 feet; 
three of them are 45 feet high and the fourth 50 feet. No. 1 
was built in 1846 and No. 2 the following year. No. 3 in 1852 

and No. 4 in 1855. In 1856 No. 1 made 4,112 and No. 3 

A 



8 . TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

6,850 tons, full time. No. 4 made 6,616 tons in 50 weeks. The 
furnaces are fed with the brown hematites of tlie valley dug at 
various distances within a western semicircle of nine miles. 
The great valley, across which the Delaware above Easton the 
Lehigh above Allentown and the Schuylkill above Heading 
flow, abounds in these local and uncertain but priceless de- 
posits, between the last named rivers, and to reach these the / 
new railroad is being made. 

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. The Lehigh Crane Iron Company’s 
Anthracite Steam Furnaces, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, stand in one 
pile, at Catasauqua, Lehigh county Pennsylvania, three miles 
above Allentown on the opposite or eastern side of the river, 
on the banks of the canal, and in front of the bridge. David 
Thomas who introduced the successful anthracite make of 
iron into this country, first at Pottsville and then here, is still 
the agent and manager of these great works. He built the 
first stack in 1840, the second in 1842, added a third in 1846, 
and the remaining two in 1850. The first three are 47 feet 
high, but of different bosh widths, namely, 11, 13, and 16 feet. 
The last two are 18 feet wide by 55 feet high, blown by 
one great blast cylinder, furnishing each of them with 9,500 
cubic feet of air per minute, at a pressure of 5-J lbs. to the 
inch, and made in 1857, No. 4, 10,122 tons, and No. 5, 10,262 
tons of metal in the fifty-two weeks, thus not only reaching but 
exceeding the yield of the Thomas Iron Company stacks next 
to be discussed. The ores used at the works are obtained from 
the brown hematite deposits to the east of the river, mixed with 
magnetic ores from New Jersey. 

38.39. The Thomas Iron Company’s Anthracite 
Steam Furnaces, Nos. 1, 2, at Hockendauqua Lehigh county 
Pennsylvania, on the west side of the Lehigh River, at the 
bridge a mile above the Crane Works, and on the Lehigli 
Yalley Railroad four miles above Allentown, were built in 
1855, and are managed by Mr. Thomas & Son, with great 
success. Built together and alike, 18 feet across the bosh 
and 60 feet high, and blown by two blast cylinders in common, 
at the extraordinary pressure of 8-J lbs. to the square inch, these 
twin stacks have steadily kept in advance of all the other fur¬ 
naces of the United States. In 1856 they made 17,446 tons 
together. In 1857 No. 1 produced 9,731 J tons, and No. 2 
A 


ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


9 


8,366f tons of iron. Tlie consummate skill and long experience 
of the manager must no doubt avoid or redress the ordinary 
troubles of the process, but this immense production even 
from these first class stacks can be accounted for only by the 
enormous consumption of oxygen which they are allowed. It 
is a satisfactory evidence of the constancy and reliability of the 
chemical and mechanical laws at our command for making 
iron that the introducer and oldest producer of anthracite iron 
in America has not been superseded, but is able still to lead off 
the greatly enhanced production with these high figures. It is 
evidently no game of chance, but a trial of practical wisdom 
based on experience and insured by the improvement of all 
the means at the disposal of the man. In a word here stands 
the demonstration that a large and well built crucible, properly 
stocked with good ores and properly blown with power to 
spare, must be a great and continual success. 

40. The Lehigh Valley Iron Company Anthracite 
Steam Furnace, B. S. Levan superintendent, Laubachsville, 
Lehigh county Pennsylvania, on the railroad one mile above 
the last, was built in the same year 1855, 14 feet wide 
by 45 feet high, and made, in 1857 4,465 tons of iron in 36 
weeks, from brown hematite ore from Balliot’s and Brown’s 
banks about 3\ miles west, and from Bitter’s and Beisel’s 
banks on the new Fogelville and Catasauqua Bailway which 
is building to connect Allentown on the Lehigh with Port Clin¬ 
ton on the Schuylkill. 

41. Poco Anthracite (water) Furnace, so named from 
the Poco or Pohopoco Mountain and stream to the north of it, 
stands on the east side of the Lehigh Biver, on the canal, at the 
mouth of the Big Creek, 22 miles above Allentown, opposite 
the Lehigh Valley Bailroad station of Parryville, and in the 
Village of Parryville, Carbon county Pennsylvania. It was 
built in 1855 and is owned by Bowman, Bros. & Co. lately 
incorporated as the Carbon Iron Company, Dennis Bowman, 
president. It is 13 feet wide by 40 feet high, and received new 
and stronger blast machinery in 1857. In forty-one and a half 
weeks of 1857 she made 3,217 tons. 

42. Mauch Chunk Anthracite Furnace, 9x33, Weiss, 
Lippencott & Co., W. McDowell manager, Carbon county 

A 


10 TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Pennsylvania. The ruins of the old Mauch Chunk or Carbon 
Furnace built in 1826, form a picturesque object in the gorge 
of the Second Mountain below Mauch Chunk, with its out¬ 
houses and hills of cinder. The machinery has been removed 
to the new stack, which is built at the upper end of the village 
of Mauch Chunk, in the narrow red shale valley between the 
Second Mountain on the south and the Mauch Chunk or Coal 
Mountain on the north. 

43. Pioneer Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Pottsville 
Schuylkill county Pennsylvania, owned and managed by Atkins 
& Brother, was built in 1837, to try the new fuel anthracite 
coal in the manufacture of iron. William Lyman, of Boston 
at that time managed it and Mr. Thomas visited it to blow 
it in. From want of experience and insufficient machinery the 
furnace was in constant trouble but perseverance and time 
overcame one obstacle after another and the Pioneer has be¬ 
come a Settler, making its fair share of iron every year. It 
was rebuilt in 1854 and is now 12 feet in the bosh by 36 high, 
and made in 1857 3,849 tons of iron. But the ores of the an¬ 
thracite coal measures upon which large calculations were 
based when the furnace was built, have proved to be worth¬ 
less and the furnace has run upon mixed magnetic and brown 
hematite ores from the Reading Yalley and the South Moun¬ 
tains. 

44. The Leesport Iron Company’s Anthracite Steam 
Furnace at Leesport in Berks county Pennsylvania, on the 
Schuylkill Canal and east side of the river, F. S. Hunter 
agent and T. Cole manager, was built in 1853, 14 feet wide 
by 45 high, and made in twelve months, 1855, 4,778 tons of 
metal, out of seven-eighths brown hematite and one-eighth 
magnetic ores mixed. 

45. Moselem Anthracite Furnace, on Maiden Creek, 
seven miles due east from Leesport, Berks county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, owned by F. S. Hunter, and managed by Nicholas 
Hunter, is 9 feet wide by 34 high, and works up the old South 
Moselem brown hematite ore, which has been quarried for 
more than thirty years and supplies Leesport Furnace also with 
most of its stock. Moselem Furnace, built in 1823, was lately 
fitted for burning anthracite. 

A. 


ANTHEACITE FUENACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


11 


46. 47. The Robesonia Iron Works, Furnace No. 1 and 2, 

once called the Reading Furnaces, stand 12 miles west of Read¬ 
ing, half a mile south of the turnpike and 2 miles east of 
Womelsdorf in Berks county Pennsylvania. Owned by Robe¬ 
son, White & Co. since 1857, the old stack, 9| x 30, was built 
in 1853, the new one, 14x40, has waited for the opening of 
the Lebanon Yalley Railroad in the spring of 1858 to make 
its first blast. In 1856 No. 1 i$ade 2,141 tons in 48 weeks 
from Cornwall magnetic ore, brought seventeen miles from the 
west, on account of its superior cheapness. No. 2 is calculated 
to make 120 tons of iron per week, of Cornwall ore. 

• 

48. Reading Anthracite Steam Furnace, on the Read¬ 
ing Railroad, at the south end of the city of Reading, Berks 
county Pennsylvania, overlooking the Schuylkill River; owned 
by Seyfert, McManus & Co.; built in 1854, 18 feet wide by 49 
feet high; made in 39 weeks of 1856 5,972£ tons, from mixed 
magnetic and brown hematite ores. 

49. 50. The Henry Clay Anthracite Steam Furnaces, 

Nos. 1 and 2, on the Reading Railroad, at the south end of the 
city of Reading, Berks county Pennsylvania, and 54 miles from 
Philadelphia, are owned by Eckert & Brother, and managed by 
D. E. Benson. No. 1, built in 1846,14 feet wide by 38 feet high, 
made in 49 weeks of 1856 4,018, and No. 2, built in 1854, 
15 feet wide, and 38 feet high, made in 46 weeks of 1856 
4,729 tons of iron, from mixed magnetic and brown hematite 
ores. 

51. Keystone Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Birds- 
borough, Berks county, Pennsylvania, on the Schuylkill, 49 miles 
by railroad from Philadelphia, was built in 1854, is 12 feet 
across the bosh, and 45 feet high, and made in 1856 3,885 
tons of metal, out of two-third magnetic ore from Warwick and 
Jones’s mines, about eight miles south, mixed with one-third 
brown hematite from the mines near Yellow Springs six miles 
southwest of Phoenixville. 

52. Hopewell Anthracite Steam Furnace is a new 

stack built upon the Schuylkill Canal, four miles north of the 
old charcoal' furnace, the machinery of which has been removed 
to the new site; owned by Clingan & Buckley, Hopewell, 
Berks county, Pennsylvania. The new stack is 12 feet wide 

A 


> 


12 TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

across the bosh by 36 feet high, and began its first blast in 
1857. 

53.54.56. The Phoenix Ironworks have three anthra¬ 
cite steam furnaces, No. 1, 2, 3, near the rolling mills on the flat 
at the mouth of French Creek, and on the Reading Railroad and 
Schuylkill Canal at Phcenixville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, 
twenty-eight miles from Philadelphia. Owners, Reeves, Puck 
& Co. of Philadelphia; manager, John Griffin. All three stacks 
are of one height, 38 feet; No. 1 and 2 are 12 feet in the bosh, 
and made in 1857 6,425f and 5,346J tons; No. 3 is 14 feet 
wide, and made in 1855 4,794f tons. Four cylinders produce a 
common blast. The magnetic and brown hematite ores used 
mixed come from Centreville, Spring Mills, Yellow Springs, Boy- 
ertown Reading and Coxtown, within a radius of forty miles. 

56. Montgomery Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Port 
Kennedy, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, 21 miles from 
Philadelphia on the Schuylkill left bank, owned by C. Miller, 
J. and M. Patterson and T. G. Hollingsworth of Philadelphia, 
was built in 1854, 11 x 36, but is now 15 feet wide by 42 feet 
high, and gets some of its ore three miles southwest, and the rest 
near Whitehorse and Ship Tavern Stations on the Chester 
Yalley Railroad, which traverses a supposed synclinal valley of 
Lower Silurian Limestone much metamorphosed. 

57. Lucinda Anthracite Steam Furnace, at the upper 
end of Norristown, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, 17 miles 
from Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill Canal, owned by William 
Schall, was built in front of the rolling mill, in 1856, going into 
blast near the close of that year. It is 11 feet bosh by 34 high, 
and made in 1857 2,000 tons in 30 weeks. Part of the gas was 
used in the rolling mill. It mixed about one-twentieth mag¬ 
netic ore with the brown hematites of the neighborhood. 

58. 59. The Swede Iron Company Anthracite Steam 
Furnaces, No. 1 and 2, form a noble pile, visible from afar, on 
the plain of the right bank of the Schuylkill, two miles below 
Norristown and 15 miles from Philadelphia, the stock plains 
crossing the Reading Railroad has been lately sold to J. B. 
Moorhead, 1,406 Arch street, Philadelphia; Griffith Jones, 
manager, Conshohocken P.O. Montgomery county, Pennsyl¬ 
vania. The stacks are each 14 feet wide in the bosh, but 
A 



ANTHRACITE Ft RNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


13 


No. 1 is 42, and No. 2, 50 feet high. No. 1 made in 48 weeks 
of 1856 5,038 tons of metal from the brown hematite ore of the 
company’s banks, one mile west. No. 2 has not been in blast 
since October, 1855. The donble stack, with its lofty round 
arches, is as fine a study for artists in its way, as the Allentown 
Works, gaining in effective height what it lacks in width and 
mass. 

60. Plymouth Anthracite Steam Furnace, at the east 
end of the bridge, 13 miles from Philadelphia, on the Norris¬ 
town Railroad, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, and owned 
by Stephen Colwell, of Philadelphia, was built in 1845, 11 feet 
wide by 36 feet high, and made in 1855 4,016 tons of metal, 
chiefly out of the brown hematites of the neighborhood. 

61. Merlon Anthracite Steam Furnace, at the west end 
of the same bridge, owned now by Joel B. Moorhead and man¬ 
aged by S. Fulton, was built three years later (1848), 12 feet 
wide by 38 feet high, and made in 1856 4,462|- tons. 

62. Springmill Anthracite Steam Furnace, one mile 
below Plymouth Furnace, owned by Jno. Farr’s heirs and David 
Reeves, and managed by J. W. Collins, was built a year before 
Plymouth (1844), is 12 feet wide inside by 40 high, and made, 
in 49 weeks of 1857 4,511 tons of metal from brown hematite 
ores. 

63. William Penn Anthracite Steam Furnaces, No. 1 

and 2, near the Springmill Furnace, and also on the Norristown 
Railroad and Schuylkill Canal, 12 miles from Philadelphia, 
owned and managed by Hitner, Cresson & Co. Barren Hill, 
P.O. Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, were built, No. 1, in 
1845, Ilf X 37 feet high inside, making in 1857 4,264 tons, and 
No. 2, in 1853, 14x53, making in 1856 5,512 tons of metal, 
from brown hematite ores. 

65. Safe Harbor Anthracite Steam Furnace, on the 

Conestoga Creek Slackwater, east bank of the Susquehanna 
river, ten miles below Columbia, Lancaster county, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, owned by Reeves, Abbott & Co. of Philadelphia, and 
managed by Wyatt W. Miller, was built with the rolling mill 
in 1848, 14 feet across the bosh by 45 feet high, and made in 
forty weeks of 1856 4,383^ tons of metal out of brown hematite 
ores, from the Kendig and Rathbone shafts, one hundred and 


14 TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

forty feet deep, and the Gontner surface quarry, all within 
three miles, and on the southern limit of the great Lancaster 
county outspread of metamorphosed Lower Silurian Limestone 
No. H. 

66. Conestoga Anthracite Steam Furnace, in the south¬ 
ern part of the borough of Lancaster, C. Geiger owner and 
manager, was built in 1853, 11x36 inside, and made 3,640 tons 
in 1856, out of brown hematite ore. 

67. 68. Shawnee Anthracite Steam Furnaces, No. 1 

and 2, one mile southeast of Columbia, Lancaster county, Penn¬ 
sylvania, owned by A. and J. Wright, are blown by one appa¬ 
ratus. No. 1, 10 feet wide by 33 feet high inside, was built in 
1844, and made 3,304 tons in 1856. No. 2, 14x47, was built 
in 1853, and made in 43 weeks of 1855 4,356 tons of metal out 
of brown hematite ores got mostly from banks four miles from 
York. 

69. Cordelia Anthracite Steam Furnace, two miles east 
of Columbia, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and three- 
quarters of a mile west of the celebrated Chestnut Hill ore 
bank, from which it gets its stock, is owned by Kauffman, 
Shaeffer & Co. and managed by C. S. Kauffman, of Columbia. 
Built in 1848, it is 10J feet across the bosh, 35 feet high, and 
made in 48 weeks of 1857 3,470J- tons of metal out of brown 
hematite ore mixed with a little grey magnetic from Cornwall 
near Lebanon. The stack was rebuilt in 1855, and the engine 
destroyed and restored in 1856. 

70. St. Charles Anthracite Steam Furnace, half a 
mile above Columbia, on the east bank of the Susquehanna 
Canal and Railroad, owned and managed by Clement B. Grubb, 
was built in 1853, is 14 feet wide and 45 high inside, and made 
in 1855 4,530 tons of metal out of brown hematite ore. 

71. Henry Clay Anthracite Steam Furnace, two miles 
above / Columbia, on the east bank of the Susquehanna Canal 
and Railroad, owned by C. B. Penrose & Co., and managed by 
Mr. Erb, was built in 1845, is 10 feet across the bosh by 32 feet 
high, and uses brown hematite ore. 

72. Chickeswalungo Anthracite Steam Furnace, half 
a mile above the last, beneath the cliffs of Chicques Rock, a 

A 


ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


15 


metamorphosed sandstone near the base of the Lower Silurian 
Limestone, holding a position analogous to one of the sandstone 
formations between the Magnesian Limestones of Missouri. 
The furnace is owned by E. Haldeman & Co. Columbia, Lan¬ 
caster county, Pennsylvania, was built in 1846, is lOf feet across 
the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in 1855 3,209 tons of metal 
from the brown hematite ores of the neighborhood. 

73. Eagle Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Marietta, Lan¬ 
caster county, Pennsylvania, three miles above Columbia, and a 
half mile above Ho. 72, on the railroad and canal, is owned 
by Eagle, Beaver & Co. and managed by Mr. Beaver. It was 
built in 1854, is 12 feet in the bosh by 35 feet high, and made 
in 1857 4,332 tons of metal, out of Chestnut Hill brown hema¬ 
tite ore mixed with a little Cornwall grey magnetic. 

74. Donegal Anthracite Steam Furnace, in Marietta, a 
hundred yards above the last, and owned by Eckert & Myers, 
and managed by Mr. Hambler, was built in 1847, is 12 feet 
wide across the bosh by 35 feet high, and made in 1855 4,747 
tons of metal, out of seven-eighths brown hematite ore from its 
own banks and others within six miles east, mixed with one- 
eighth Cornwall grey magnetic. 

75. 76. Marietta Anthracite Steam Furnaces, Ho. 1 
and 2, a hundred yards above the last, owned by Musselman 
& Watts, were built in 1849 and 1850, 11 x 36 and 10 x 30 feet 
inside, and made in 1857, Ho. 1, in 43 weeks, 3,560^ tons, and 
No. 2, in 30-| weeks, 2,469J tons of metal out of mixed brown 
hematite ores from the neighborhood. 

77. 78. Middletown Anthracite Steam Furnaces, 

Ho. 1 and 2, at Middletown, in Dauphin county, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, on the east bank of the Susquehanna, 13 miles above 
Marietta, and 9 miles below Harrisburg, on the canal and rail¬ 
road, owned by Wood & Stirling, of Pittsburg, and managed 
by J. C. Boyle, were built in 1853 and 1854, 12J feet wide in 
the bosh. Ho. 1 is 33 feet high and made in 1856 3,420| tons. 
Ho. 2 is 36 feet high, and made in 34 weeks of the same year, 
2,261 tons of metal, out of Cornwall magnetic ore which comes 
thirty miles down the Union Canal from near Lebanon. 

79. Cameron Anthracite Steam Furnace, at the east 
end of. the village of Middletown, half a mile from the last, 

A 


16 TABLE A. — ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

is owned by Landis & Co. was built in 1856 and furnished 
with the machinery which blew the two old Cameron Stacks 
torn down at the same time. The new stack is 14 feet wide 
across the bosh and 35 feet high, and has made in 38J weeks 
of 1857 2,575 tons of metal out of mixed magnetic and brown 
hematite ores. 

80. Harrisburg Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Harris¬ 
burg, Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, on the east side of the 
canal, back of the capitol, is owned by David R. Porter, and 
managed by W. Keller, was built in 1845, is 11 feet in the bosh 
by 40 feet high, and made in 1855 3,805 tons of iron out of 
mixed grey magnetic and brown hematite ores. 

81. Paxton (late Keystone) Anthracite Steam Fur¬ 
nace, on the east side of the railroad, a mile south of the Har¬ 
risburg Furnace, is owned by McCormick & Co. (late Bryan, 
Longenecker & Co.), w T as built in 1855; is 16 feet wide and 43 
feet high inside, and made in 37 weeks of 1855 4,504 tons of 
metal out of mixed magnetic and hematite ores, in the propor¬ 
tion of one-half Chestnut Hill, one-fourtli Haldeman, and one- 
fourtli Cornwall. The maximum yield one week was 170 tons. 

82. Union Deposit Anthracite Steam Furnace, on the 

Union Canal in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, eleven miles 
east of Harrisburg, is owned by Gingrich, Balsbaugh & Co. 
S. M. Krauser agent, was built in 1854, is 11 feet wide by 39 
high inside, and made in 36 weeks of 1857 2,294 tons of metal 
from Cornwall grey magnetic ore, which comes 14 miles down 
the Union Canal from Lebanon. 

83. Mew Market Anthracite Steam and Water Fur¬ 
nace, 3 miles northwest of Millerstown, between Harrisburg 
and Lebanon, Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, is owned by Light 
and Early, was built in 1855, is 9 x 30 feet inside and made in 
18 weeks of 1856 728 tons of metal from Cornwall grey mag¬ 
netic ore. 

84. Dudley Anthracite Steam Furnace, on the turnpike 
half a mile west of Lebanon, Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, is 
now owned by P. W. Coleman, was built in 1855, is 13J feet 
across the top of the bosh and 36 feet high, and made in 39 
weeks of 1856 3,628 tons of metal from Cornwall grey magnetic, 
ore, brought by railway six miles from the south. 

A 


ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


17 


85.86.87. North Lebanon Anthracite Steam Fur¬ 
naces, Nos. 1, 2 and 3, one mile north of the last, on the north 
side of the Union Canal, are owned by Geo. Dawson Coleman, 
and managed by Charles B. Forney. No. 1 and 2, were built 
in 1848 and 1849, side by side with the foundations of a third 
stack not yet built, and 35 feet high. No. 1 is 14 feet across 
the bosh and made in 1856 4,602 tons. No. 2 is 12 feet and 
made in 54 3,688 tons of metal out of Cornwall grey magnetic 
ore. No. 3 is an experimental stack, 4 feet across the hearth, 
10 across the top of boshes, and so up for 26 feet to a tunnel 
head of the same width; it is stocked by an air blast lift, con¬ 
sisting of a boiler plate tube 50 feet long and 3 feet in diameter, 
rising and falling vertically in a 5 feet wide well, 52 feet deep, 
provided with friction rollers on the sides, and filled with 
water. A small blast tube from the air reservoir descends the 
side of the well to the bottom, turns and ascends in the centre 
of the boiler plate tube to the level of the soil. By turning on 
the blast through this pipe, the boiler plate tube is inflated, and 
rises like a gasometer with a platform on its head, carrying up 
the wheelbarrows of ore, coal, and lime to a level with the 
tunnel head. This plan of hoist has proved entirely successful 
in England. 

But the essential peculiarity of this furnace consists in its 
using hot blast (if desirable) without robbing the tunnel head 
of its gas, or interfering with the action of the upper part of the 
crucible. The hot pipes are therefore heated like the steam 
engine boiler flues, by the direct application of fresh coal, and 
the wide tunnel head becomes possible, so soon as the necessity 
for drawing off the gas at the tunnel head is obviated, and this 
is the prime object of the experiment. 

88.89. Cornwall Anthracite Steam Furnaces, No. 1 and 

2, five miles south of Lebanon, Lebanon county Pennsylvania, 
and near the celebrated Cornwall grey magnetic ore mines, at 
the north edge of the New Red Sandstone (or Middle Second¬ 
ary) deposit, where it overlaps the Lower Silurian Limestone 
and Sandstone, No. II. and I. and near a trap dyke, at the high¬ 
est source of the Quitapahilla creek,—are owned by R. W. and 
IN. Coleman, and managed by B. Mooney. No. 1, built in 
1850, is 12 feet wide in the bosh by 38 feet high, and made 

2 A 



18 TABLE A. - ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

about 5,000 tons in 1856. No 2, built in 1855, is 14 by 38, and 
produces in the same proportion. 

90. Stanhope Anthracite Steam Furnace, two miles from 
Pinegrove in Schuylkill county Pennsylvania, on the Swatara 
river, was built in 1835, is owned by Breitenbach and Sheetz, 
was formerly 11, is now 10 feet wide in the bosh by 33 feet 
high, and made in 30 weeks of 1856, 1,874 tons of metal from 
Cornwall grey magnetic ore. 

91. Duncannon Anthracite Steam Furnace, at the mouth 
of Sherman’s Creek in Perry county Pennsylvania thirteen 
miles above Harrisburg, on the west side of the Susquehanna, 
and on the Pensylvania Railroad and State Canal, was built in 
1853, is owned by Fisher, Morgan and Company, is 14 feet 
wide across the bosh and 40 feet high, and made in 26 weeks of 
1854 1,871 tons of metal from mixed grey magnetic, brown 
hematite and red fossil ores. 

92. Lewistown Anthracite Steam Furnace, on the 

Juniata river and Canal at Lewistown, Mifflin county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, owned by Etting, Graff and Co. and managed by William 
Willis, was built in 1846, is 11 feet wide and 37 high inside, and 
made in 44 weeks of 1854 3,486 tons of metal from mixed brown 
hematite and the fossil red ore of the Upper Silurian Limestone 
shales of the Clinton group, Formation Y. which outcrops along 
the base of Jack’s Mountain. 

93. Hope Anthracite Steam Furnace, two miles back 
from the Juniata river canal, seven miles above Lewistown, 
Mifflin county Pennsylvania, was built in 1810. It is now 
owned by J. Murray of Baltimore, A. B. Wood and others ; is 
12 feet wide by 39 high inside, and made 900 tons in 16 weeks 
in 1856 from mixed brown hematite and fossil ore like the last. 

94. Shamokin Anthracite Steam Furnace, at Shamokin, 
Northumberland county Pennsylvania, on the Shamokin and 
Sunbury railroad. It is in the same position relative to the exit 
of the Shamokin river through the gap in the northern barrier 
of that Anthracite coal-field, as that occupied by Pioneer Fur¬ 
nace (No 43) relative to the Sharp mountain gap at Pottsville. 
These are in fact the only two anthracite furnaces built upon 
coal rocks, in the southern basins ; a fact to be explained by the 
A 


ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


19 


0 

entire absence of available beds of iron ore in the Anthracite 
coal measures, and the mountainous and still inaccessible 
character of most of the region which they occupy. It is of 
course easier to run down the coal to the neighborhood of the 
ore beds than to drag the ores up into the coal. The absence 
of limestone in the eastern coal fields is also an element in the 
arrangement. Shamokin Furnace, owned by H. Longenecker, 
and Co. and built in 1842, is 12 x 45 inside, brings its ores from 
Lebanon, Columbia and Danville, and made in 32 weeks of 
1856, 2,465 tons. 

95. Chulasky Anthracite Steam Furnace, in Northum¬ 
berland county Pennsylvania, standing under the cliffs on the 
north bank of the North Branch Susquehanna, three miles down 
the canal from Danville, Montour county Pennsylvania, was 
owned by one of the pioneers of Iron Manufacture in America, 
Samuel Wood of Philadelphia, until his death in 185T. It is 
now owned by J. Y. L. Dewitt and managed as before by R. W. 
Richardson ; is 15 feet wide across the bosh and 42 feet high, 
(reduced 8 feet in 1856,) and produced in 51 weeks of 1857 
4,645J tons of metal from red fossil Upper Silurian or Clinton 
ore of Formation Y. cropping out all around Montour’s Ridge. 

96. Franklin Anthracite Steam Furnace, three miles 
northwest of Danville, in Montom’ county and behind Mon¬ 
tour’s Ridge, owned by David Reeves and Son, was built in 
1846 and stands idle since 1855. It is 9 x 32 inside and made 
in 1854 1,660 tons from red fossil ore of Formation Y. 

97. 98. 99. The Montour Iron Company’s Anthracite 
Steam Furnaces Nos. 2, 3 and 4 stand together at the lower 
or western end of Danville, on the North Branch Canal and 
near the Catawissa and Williamsport railroad, and are managed 
by J. P. and J. Grove. No. 2 and 3 were built together in 1839 
and are 17 feet wide across the bosh, 35 feet high and 10 feet 
across the tunnel head, and made in thirty-seven and thirty-nine 
weeks of 1857 5,517 and 5,361 tons. No. 4 was added in 1846, 
14 by 35, with a tunnel head at first 7 and then 13 feet wide, 
and made in thirty-seven weeks of the same year, 3,371J tons 
of metal. In 1856 No. 1 used only the red fossil Upper Silurian 
(Clinton shale) ore of the neighborhood, some of which is a 
hard silicious block ore and the rest a soft, spongy, ochreous 

A 


20 TABLE A. — ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

v 

hematite originally full of minute limestone fossils; No. 3 mixed 
one half Cornwall grey magnetic ore, and No. 4, one third. The 
great rolling mill works of the company are near by, see Table 
G. No. 90. The Rough and Ready Mill, Table G. No. 89, is also 
in the town. 

100. Columbia Anthracite Steam Furnace, half a mile 
from the last at the upper end of Danville, Montour county 
Pennsylvania, owned and managed by J. P. and J. Grove, was 
built in 1840 as a bank furnace, had its tunnel head enlarged in 
1856 from six to ten feet, is 36 feet high, a straight cylinder 12 
feet wide for twenty feet above the bosh, and made in forty- 
nine weeks of 1857 3,371J tons of metal out of mixed Cornwall 
grey magnetic and Danville red fossiliferous ores. 

101. Roaring Creek Anthracite Water Power Fur¬ 
nace at the mouth of Roaring Creek, Montour county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, on the south side of the Susquehanna, four miles above 
Danville, owned by Elisha Reynolds and Brother of Danville, 
and leased by Wm. Kase, was built in 1840 and altered in 
1854 from 8 to 10 feet in the bosh by 30 high, received a 
new hot blast and made in 1856 2,350 tons in spite of low 
water, out of the red fossil ore of the opposite Montour’s Ridge. 

102. Bloom Anthracite Steam Furnace, back of Blooms 
burg, Columbia county Pennsylvania, ten miles east of Dan¬ 
ville, owned by McKelvy and Neal, was built in 1847, is 14 
feet wide by 50 high inside and made in 1857 5,793^ tons of 
metal from the red fossil ore of Montour’s Ridge, opened in an 
anticlinal arch on both sides of the gap behind the town, as well 
as east and west towards Berwick and towards Danville. The 
ore is in several strata, lapping against the flanks of the Ridge 
all round. The lower layers are more silicious and the upper 
more calcareous. The furnaces which run upon this ore get 
their flux from the Helderberg Limestone Formations, Forma¬ 
tion YI. overlying the shales which contain the ore, Forma¬ 
tion Y. 

103.104. Irondale Anthracite Water Power Fur¬ 
naces, Nos. 1 and 2, near the last, on the line of the West 
Branch Yalley Railroad constructing from Pittston to Catawissa, 
are owned by the Bloomsburg Railroad and Iron Company, and 
managed by Charles R. Paxton, Jr. were built in 1844,14 feet 
A 


ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA, 


21 


vy vde across the top of the bosh and 35 feet high, No. 1, reduced 
to 12 feet made in 1857 5,830-J tons, and No. 2 6,161J tons, out 
of the red fossil ore of the Eidge. 

105. Henry Clay Anthracite Steam Furnace in the 

middle of the village of Lightstreet, Columbia county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, three miles north of Bloomsburg, owned by Samuel 
Bettle, built in 1847, 9 feet wide and 32 feet high inside, made 
in forty weeks of 1854 1,682 tons of metal out of red fossil ore 
mined on the north side and east end of Montour’s Eidge a mile 
from the Furnace. 

105. Williamsburg Anthracite Steam Furnace at the 

upper end of Lightstreet half a mile north of the last, owned by 
M. McDowell, built in 1845, 8 feet wide and 28 high inside, has 
made nothing since 1855, before which time its annual produc¬ 
tion was about 1,200 tons. 

107. Hunlach’s Creek Anthracite Steam Furnace at 

the mouth of the creek, in Luzerne county Pennsylvania, on 
the north side of the Susquehanna river and North Branch Canal 
and new Eailroad, twelve miles below Wilkesbarre, owned by 
William Koons of Schickshinny Luzerne county Pennsylvania, 
was built in 1854, 11 feet wide by 40 high inside, and made in 
two-thirds of 1857 about 1,900 tons of metal out of Bloomsburg 
red fossil Upper Silurian, Formation Y. ore. 

108. The Wyoming Iron Company’s Anthracite Steam 
Furnace half a mile southwest of Wilksbarre, Wyoming county 
Pennsylvania, on the North Branch Canal, was built in 1847 
and burnt August 1855 ; its ruined stack measures 9 feet across 
the bosh by 32 feet high and the year its machinery was 
destroyed it made 966 tons of metal from fossil ore. It stands 
in the heart of the Wyoming coal basin but must draw all its 
ores from Blossburg and Danville. 

109.110. 111.112. The Lackawanna Iron and Coal 
Company’s Anthracite Steam Furnaces, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 

stand together under the lofty bank of the Creek at Scranton, 
Luzerne county Pennsylvania, in the centre of the eastern divi¬ 
sion of the Wyoming coal basin, where it is crossed by the Dela¬ 
ware Gap, Scranton and Great Bend, North and South railroad, 
and with railroad connections along the basin, with Wilksbarre 

A 


22 TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

seventeen miles on tlie one hand and with Carbondale on the 
other. L. T. Scranton President. Theodore Sturgiss Treasurer. 
James H. Phinney Secretary. Joseph H. Scranton General 
Superintendent. J. C. Pratt Agent. The original No. 1 fur¬ 
nace is a ruin a few paces distant up the creek towards the Poll¬ 
ing Mill, see Table G, 88. No. 2, and 3, were built in 1849, 
No. 3 was added in 1852 and No. 4 in 1854 but never has 
been used. Their respective diameters inside at the tops of the 
boshes are 15, 17, 18 and 20 feet, and their common" height 48 
feet. Their rate of production has been very unequal. No. 2 
made 3,337 tons in six months in 1856. No. 3 made 3,680 tons 
in forty-three weeks of 1854. No. 3 made 4,536 tons in forty- 
nine weeks of 1856. The capacity of No. 4 has not been tested. 
The ores for these stacks are not furnished by the coal measures 
in which they stand, but are obtained from the red fossil mines 
of Bloomsburg and Danville, and the magnetic ore-beds of New 
Jersey. The Anthracite coal measures hold no workable de¬ 
posits of iron, differing in this greatly from the Bituminous coal 
measures as we shall see hereafter, although they are not only 
similar formations but identical in point of origin and age. It is 
a common fault of English writers to make the anthracite beds 
older and place them beneath the bituminous, but no doubt of 
their common age and position is now felt in this country. It 
has in fact been fully demonstrated. The absence of anthracite 
iron deposits becomes a subject of curious speculation as it has 
been one of great pecuniary interest and was a bitter dis¬ 
appointment to the first manufacturers of iron with stone coal. 
It is an absence however perhaps more practical than real, for the 
hardening of all the anthracite shales make the same quantity of 
iron in them as would be workable, were they as soft as they are 
in the west, inaccessible by ordinary mining and at the ordi¬ 
nary price of iron. Strange at first as it may appear therefore 
these Lackawana stacks, the Pioneer at Pottsville and the 
Shamokin, are all that run within the limits of the Anthracite 
basins of Pennsylvania. 

113. Union Anthracite Steam Furnace, four miles below 
Lewistown, Union county Pennsylvania, on the west side of the 
West Branch Susquehanna river, owned by Beaver, Geddes, 
Marsh & Co. of Lewistown, built in 1854, is 15 feet across the 

A 


ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF MARYLAND. 


23 


bosh by 45 feet high, and made in forty-five weeks of 1856 
3,590^- tons of metal from Cornwall grey magnetic ore mixed 
with Danville red fossil. 

114. Margaretta Anthracite Steam Furnace at the north 
end of the Sunbury and Erie railroad bridge over the North 
Branch Susquehanna half a mile below Williamsport Lycom¬ 
ing county Pennsylvania, owned by Bingham, McKinney & Co. 
and managed by Mr. Kremer, was built in 1855, 13 feet wide 
by 38 high inside, and made in twenty weeks of 1856 750 tons 
of iron out of mixed brown hematite and Bloomsburg red fossil 
ores. The furnace was rebuilt in 1857 and will use block ore 
from a quarry nine miles west of the furnace, and others along 
this last outcrop of the same upper Silurian, Clinton, red fossil 
ore of Formation V. which here disappears beneath the Alle¬ 
ghany Mountain rocks to appear again along the southern shore 
of Lake Ontario. From Williamsport its outcrop ranges south- 
westwardly along the northern base of the Bald Eagle moun¬ 
tain, up the Susquehanna to the next furnace, Millhall, and so 
on to the coke furnaces at Hollidaysburg and Cumberland. 

115. The Mill Hall Iron Company’s Anthracite Water¬ 
power Furnace near the mouth of the Bald Eagle Creek, in 
Clinton county Pennsylvania, was originally a charcoal furnace 
built in 1830, and remodelled in 1857, 10 feet in the bosh by 32 
feet high, to run on the brown hematite ores of the Nittany 
Valley Lower Silurian Limestone, Form II. mixed with the 
Upper Silurian red fossil ores of the Bald Eagle mountain, Form¬ 
ation V. 

116. 117. Rough and Ready Anthracite Steam Furnaces 

No. 1, 2, at Havre-de-Grace, Harford county Maryland, where 
the Philadelphia and Baltimore railroad crosses the Susquehanna 
river, owned by Joseph and George P. Whitaker of Philadel¬ 
phia, were built of the same size 9 feet across the bosh by 
30 feet high. No. 1 made 1,265 tons of metal in twenty-one 
weeks of 1856, out of brown hematite ores mixed with some red 
fossil, some grey magnetic, and some of the “ bone ” carbonate 
ores of the tertiary formations in the neighborhood. 

118. South Baltimore Anthracite Water-power Fur¬ 
nace, on the south side of the harbor of Baltimore, Maryland, 
owned by Daniel M. Reese and managed by the owner, was 

A 


24 


TABLE A.—ANTHRACITE FURNACES OF MARYLAND. 


built 10 feet in the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in thirty 
eight weeks of 1856 2,600 tons of metal, from brown hema¬ 
tite ores. “ On account of the gradual upward tendency in the 
price of wood, and increasing scarcity of what is termed Balti¬ 
more ore, we look for a reduction rather than an increase in the 
production of pig iron in this city and vicinity. The ores com¬ 
monly termed hone and chocolate are found embedded in clay 
in a region of country extending in a northeast and southwest 
direction, from the Schuylkill to the Potomac, and west or in¬ 
land to a distance of ten or twenty miles. They were worked 
before the revolutionary war. Sometimes they are found in a 
transition state between wood, or the remains of trees, and ore.” 
(Stickney & Co.) 

119. The Ashland Iron Company's Anthracite Steam 
and Water Furnaces, on the Northern Central railroad fifteen 
miles from Baltimore, Bichard Green of Cockeysville, Baltimore 
county, Agent, are 11 feet across the top of the bosh by 32 feet 
high. No. 1 made 2,573-J tons in thirty-four weeks of 1854. 
No. 2 made 4,215 tons in 1856, out of brown hematite ores 
mixed with some magnetic and some carbonate. 

120, Oregon Anthracite Steam Furnace, three miles 
west of the last and under the same ownership and management, 
is 11 X36 inside, and made 4,419£ tons in 1855. 



A 



\ 


TABLES B. E. H. K 

CHARCOAL BLAST FURNACES IN THE UNITED STATES. 

1. The Katahdin Iron Company’s Charcoal Furnace, 

Piscataqua county Maine, about fifty miles north of Bangor, 
near the Iron Mountain, where Pleasant river leaves the Lake, 
in township vi., range ix., is owned by David Pingree, of Salem, 
Massachusetts, was built in 1845,42 feet high, and made in 1856 
2,100 tons of metal from bog ore found upon the mountain-side. 

2. Franconia Charcoal Furnace in Franconia county New Hampshire is old 
and has not been in active operation for some years. It used the metamorphic 
(Upper Silurian or Devonian ?) rock-ores belonging to the White Mountain range. 

3. Tyson’s Charcoal Furnace, a few miles north of Lud¬ 
low, Windsor county Yermont, a railroad station 25 miles east 
of Rutland on the way to Bellows Falls, is an old furnace owned 
by Isaac Tyson jun. of Baltimore Maryland, and not in opera¬ 
tion. It is upon the eastern slope of the Green Mountains, and 
has used the metamorphic rock-ores of that side, the brown 
hematite deposits being on the western slope. 

4. The Green Mountain Iron Company’s Charcoal Hot-blast Furnace, 

miles northeast of Brandon Village, Rutland county Vermont, 17 miles north of 
Rutland, on a stream at the upper end of Forestdale Village, under Mr. Royal Blake’s, 
house, is quite old, but was enlarged in 1854 to 9 feet across the bosh by 24 feet 
high, and blown without success with anthracite coal,* and was abandoned in 1855. 
The Company now own part of the brown hematite Conant deposits, lying about a 
mile south of the furnace. A bed of red oxide, 3 miles northeast was also used 
6ome little to mix. Another brown hematite bed lies 2^ miles north. 

Besides these, there have been no blast-furnaces running in Vermont for some 
years. There stand two in Sheldon, Franklin county, 9 miles east of St. Alban’s; 
one in Troy, Orleans county; two in Bennington, Bennington county, and two in 
Dorset, on the Western Vermont Railroad, between Bennington and Rutland. The 
heavy snows make it difficult to get stock, and unless such lignite beds as the one 
used by Conant Furnace be discovered elsewhere the dearness of charcoal and the 
scarcity of ore will prevent this from becoming a principal furnace district again. 

5. Conant Charcoal Cold-blast Furnace, owned by the 
Brandon Iron and Car Wheel Company, George W. Palmer 

* Not noticed in the Anthracite table. 

Table B 


4 


26 TABLE B. — CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NEW ENGLAND. 

treasurer and agent, in Brandon village Rutland county Ver¬ 
mont, on Mill River, quarter of a mile north of the railroad 
depot, 17 miles north of Rutland, and 50 south of Burlington, 
was built in 1820 and rebuilt and enlarged in 1839 to 8 feet in 
the bosh by 39 feet high, and made in twenty-one weeks of 
1855 1,144 tons of car-wheel .iron, out of brown hematite ores 
from the banks 2 miles east of the village at the foot of the 
mountain. This is a locality of great geological interest. 
With the iron ore is deposited oxide of manganese, kaoline or 
porcelain clay, and lignite brown coal containing multitudes of 
fossil fruit, figured and described by Prof. Hitchcock in SilU- 
man’s Journal , January 7, 1853, and supposed by him and 
by some other geologists, to demonstrate the tertiary age of 
all the brown hematite beds»referred to in these notes, and found 
distributed along the narrow belt of limestone country from 
Canada to Alabama; a mistake which will be discussed fully 
hereafter. The company which works this ore bed and runs 
the furnace was incorporated in 1851 with an ultimate capital 
of $150,000. It manufactures car-wheels, fire-brick, paints and 
paper-clay in Brandon. It has also a foundry and machine 
shop in Rutland, 300 yards from the railroad station. This fur¬ 
nace is run with the lignite coal found in the ore quarry. 

6. The Pittsford Iron Company’s Charcoal Hot-blast 
Furnace, three miles east of Pittsford, Rutland county Ver¬ 
mont (a village station nine miles north of Rutland on the Ver¬ 
mont Central Railroad and ten miles south of Brandon furnace), 
managed by Mr. Granger, Pittsford Furnace P.O. was built as 
long ago as 1791, rebuilt in 1824, 8x27, and enlarged in 1853 
to 9 feet across the top of the bosh by 42 feet high. This beau¬ 
tiful stack standing at the mouth of one of the western ravines 
of the Green Mountains is built of stone taken from one rock and 
round-arched over the tuyeres with fire-brick, has a water-wheel 
of 24 feet, and made in thirty weeks of 1856 1,569 tons of iron, 
out of the brown hematite ores of the vicinity (in Lower Silu¬ 
rian metamorphosed Limestone For. II.) mixed with a little 
Champlain magnetic ore. A foundry is attached to the furnace 
manufacturing 300 tons of stoves per annum. 

7. Dorset Charcoal Furnaoe, at Dorset in Bennington 
county Vermont, is old, and has been active until lately, work 

B 


CHAU COAL FURNACES IN NEW ENGLAND. 


27 


ing up the brown hematite ores of the same Lower Silurian 
Limestone belt which faces the Green Mountains on the west. 

8. The North Adams Iron Company’s Charcoal Hot- 
blast Furnace, on the Hoosic river, J. E. Marshall agent, 
North Adams P.O. Berkshire county Massachusetts, was built 
in 1845, is 8 by 31 inside and made in forty-five weeks of 1856 
1,916 tons of iron for the Albany Iron Works, out of brown 
hematite from the Adams’ bank 21 miles southwest, mixed 
with Lanesborough (14 m. south), Richmond and Amenia ores. 

9. The Cheshire Iron Furnace Company’s Charcoal. 
Warm-blast Steam Furnace, managed by E. W. Thayer, Che¬ 
shire P.O. Berkshire county Massachusetts, was built in 1848, 
about 9 feet across the bosh by 40 high, and made in half of 
1856 686 tons of metal out of brown hematite ore from its own 
banks east and west of it within a mile. 

10. The Briggs Iron Furnace Company’s Charcoal 
Warm-blast Steam Furnace, in Lanesborough, Berkshire 
county Massachusetts, 5 miles west of Pittsfield, and 11 miles 
across a mountain west of the North Adams railway, Daniel Day 
treasurer and agent, was built by Samuel Smith of Boston in 1847, 
is 111 feet wide by 42 feet high, and made in twenty six weeks 
of 1857 1,0981 tons of soft iron for Worcester, Springfield, Law¬ 
rence and Boston, out of brown hematite ores from its own 
banks 31 miles west. It commenced making hot-blast iron in 
1848. 

11. The Lenox Iron Works Company’s Charcoal Hot- 

blast Furnace, W. A. Phelps treasurer and agent Lenox P.O. 
Berkshire county Massachusetts, was first built as long ago as 
1765, 28 feet high with one tuyere. In 1839 it was rebuilt, 
9 x 351, with 3 tuyeres, and made in forty-two weeks of 1857 
1,772J tons of strong foundry metal for Pittsfield, Springfield, 
Worcester, Boston, Stafford, and Troy, out of brown hematite 
ore from its own bank, 4 miles west. This furnace made in the 
good year 1851 2,081 tons. 

12. The Stockbridge Iron Works Company’s Charcoal 
Furnace, No. 1 (No. 2 is anthracite, see table A. No, 3), situated 
three miles from Stockbridge village and one mile from the 
Housatonic post office, R. Ray agent (G. B. Cartwright agent 

B 




2 $ TABLE B.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NEW ENGLAND. 

in Boston), was built in 1835, is 10 feet wide across the top of 
the bosh, and made until 1855 when it stopped about 1,200 tons 
in thirty-five weeks per annum. 

13. The Richmond Iron Company’s Charcoal Warm- 
blast Steam and Water Furnace, on the Western railroad, 
five miles northeast of the State Line, and eight miles southwest 
of Pittsfield, John H. Coffin agent, Richmond P.O. Berkshire 
county Massachusetts, is 9 feet in the bosh by about 31 feet 
high, and made in forty-three weeks of 1856 2,242J tons of hard 
carwheel iron, which stood a strain of 24,222 lbs. to the square 
inch, out of brown hematite ores from the Richmond and West 
Stockbridge mines owned by the Company. 

14. The Vandusenville Charcoal Hot-blast Furnace, 

at the junction of the Pittsfield and the Albany branches of the 
Housatonic railroad and two miles and a half from Great 
Barrington, owned by the same Richmond Iron Company as the 
last, was built in 1834 and rebuilt in 185 ?, is 9 feet wide across 
the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in forty-one weeks of 1855 
2,395J tons of mostly hard car-wheel metal out of brown hema¬ 
tite ore from the Richmond bank ten miles, and the West Stock- 
bridge bank seven and a half miles north of the furnace. 
Steam power was to have been given to it in 1857. 

15. Beckley Charcoal Hot-blast Furnace, in East Canaan, 
Litchfield county Connecticut, two miles east from North 
Canaan Station on the Housatonic railroad, owned by John A. 
Beckley, John Dunmore agent, run by Richardson, Barnum & 
Co. in 1857, was built in 1847, is 9 feet wide by 30 high inside, 
and made in fifty weeks of 1857 2,704 tons of mostly car-wheel 
iron for Albany, Troy and Schenectady, Canada and Georgia, 
out of brown hematite ores from Salisbury, Old Hill and Davis’ 
banks. 

16. The Forbes’ Iron Company’s Charcoal Hot-blast 
Furnace, near the last is older, having been built about 1832. 
Rebuilt and remodelled in 1856, it is now 9 feet wide by 28 feet 
high within and made in thirty-nine weeks of 1857 1,858£ 
tons of metal, out of the same ores as the last. 

17. Scovill’s Charcoal Hot-blast Furnace, in South 
Canaan Litchfield county three miles east of Falls Village 

B 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NEW ENGLAND. 


29 


Housatonic railroad station, owned by Scovill & C). Falls Til¬ 
lage P.O. Litchfield county Connecticut, built as cold blast in 
1844 and changed to hot blast about 1853, is 8 feet wide by 25 
feet high inside, and made in thirty-two weeks of 1857 1,142 tons 
of iron, out of brown hematite ore from its own bank ten miles 
west, and Old Hill and Davis’ banks nearly as far. 

18. Buena Vista Charcoal Hot-blast Furnace, five miles 
east of Falls Tillage Honsatonic railroad station, owned by 
Hunt, Lyman & Co. managed by D. M. Hunt, Huntsville, 
Litchfield county Connecticut, built in 1847, is now 10 feet wide 
across the top of the bosh by 29 feet high inside, and made in 
forty-four weeks of 1856 2,015f tons of high grey car-wheel iron 
for the Jersey City Car Works and elsewhere including Roches¬ 
ter, Buffalo and Wilmington Delaware, out of brown hematite 
ore from the same banks mentioned in the last. 

19. The Cornwall Iron Company’s Charcoal Cold-blast 
Furnace, near the Housatonic railroad station in West Corn¬ 
wall, (Samuel Scovill agent, West Cornwall P.O. Litchfield 
county Connecticut,) built in 1832, is 8£ by 30 feet inside, and 
made through the blast of 1856 27 tons of metallic grey iron a 
week, roasting its brown hematite Amenia and Salisbury ores 
with its hot gases passed through the piles of ore in the yard. 
This plan has been successfully employed since 1854. 

20. The Cornwall Bridge Iron Company’s Charcoal 
Cold-blast Furnace, near the Housatonic railway station of 
that name in West Cornwall Litchfield county Connecticut, was 
built in 1833, never used but one tuyere, is 9 x 30 feet inside, 
and made perhaps 1,200 tons in 1854, of malleable iron for the 
city markets, out of brown hematite ores. 

21. Mount Riga Charcoal Cold-blast Furnace, five 
miles north of Lakeville, once called Furnace Tillage, was for¬ 
merly owned by Campbell of Millerton, now by the Salisbury 
Iron Company, Landon & Co. Chapensville Litchfield county 
Connecticut, was an old furnace, built about 1800. It was 
rebuilt in 1845 8 feet across the top of the bosh by 30 high, but 
across the bilge six feet above the top of the bosh it is 16 feet 
wide. It made in fourteen weeks of 1856 436 tons of forge ircn 
out of brown hematite ore from the Old Hill mine, a deep pit 

B 



30 TABLE B.—CHARCOAL, FURNACES IN NEW ENGLAND. 

quarry yawning beneath the main road from Millerton to North 
Canaan and Hartford, one of the oldest and largest of all this 
curious range of deposits in the Lower Silurian metamorphic 
belt on the northwest side of the Highlands of New York, 
Connecticut, Massachusetts and Yermont. Davis’ banks lie one 
and half mile further east near Lakeville. 

22. Joiceville Charcoal Furnace, one and a half mile 
northwest of the next to be described and only used when that 
has an excess of stock, is known also as the Sage Iron Company’s 
Furnace. Owned by Landon and Co. and the Salisbury Iron 
Company, Chapensville P.O. Litchfield county, Connecticut, it 
is about 8 x 29, and has stood idle since 1854. 

23. Chapensville Charcoal Cold and Hot blast Fur¬ 
nace, three and a half miles north-northwest of Falls Village 
Housatonic railroad station, and a mile north of the main Hud¬ 
son and Hartford road through Millerton, is owned as the last, 
and of the same size, and made in thirty-five weeks of 1856 
1,155 tons of partly hot partly cold-blast iron from Old Hill 
hematite ore. 

24. Limerock Charcoal cold blast Furnace, three miles 
west-southwest of Falls Tillage Housatonic railway station, 
owned by Canfield and Robbins of Falls Tillage, Salisbury, 
Litchfield county. Connecticut. Built about 1825, 8-J x 30, 
furnished with a hot-blast apparatus which it never used but 
once and then scarcely warm, it made in twenty-two weeks of 
1856 205 tons of forge iron for the Falls Tillage works. 
Limerock is a very old iron locality. Here iron was made 120 
years ago by bloomery forges running upon Old Hill bank ore. 
There is an old furnace also at Falls Tillage which has not 
blown for IT years. At Lakeville there was one, now torn 
down, which made iron before the revolutionary war. Shot 
and shell were cast there for the British troops. The iron for the 
Albany Water Works was also made there forty years ago. 
There were two Refining Forges with 10 fires, one at Limerock 
and the other at Falls Tillage, which made government iron ; 
but a superior sample of Swedish iron induced government to 
import largely; and before the inferior imported iron was used 
up the forges had been abandoned and have since been 
torn down, and very little refining is now done. Richardson, 
B 



CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NEW ENGLAND. 


31 


Bamum and Co. at Limerock, melted 11 tons, and made 40 
car-wlieels a day last year, and make this winter 20 a day. In 
the spring and fall they make 40 a day. 

25. Weed’s Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, four 
miles east of the Harlaem B. B. Sharon Station on the road to 
Cornwall, owned by Hiram Weed of Sharon Tillage, Litchfield 
county Connecticut, is 7 x 24 feet inside and made about 500 tons 
in six months of 1855, out of Salisbury, Amenia and Palmer 
brown hematite ores, for Hew Haven, Hewark and Hew York. 

26. Sharon Valley Cold and Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, two miles east of Harlaem B. B. Sharon Station, 1-J- miles 
from the last furnace, owned by H. Landon and Co. Fitch and 
Landon Agents, Sharon Yalley Furnace P.O. Litchfield county 
Connecticut, is 8 x 34 inside, and makes axle and tyre iron for 
Ames’s Works at Falls Tillage and Eddie’s Works at Troy. 
It made in forty-eight weeks of 1854 1,867 tons of “strong 
iron,” out of the brown hematite ores of the neighborhood. It 
makes cast iron for government ordnance. 

27. Kent Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, one mile north of 
the Housatonic B. B. Bent Station, owned by Stewart, Hopkins 
and Co. Kent P.O. Litchfield county Connecticut, was built 
originally in 1825, cold blast and 28 feet high. In 1846 it 
was rebuilt 9 x 31 inside, made hot blast, and uses one-fourth 
anthracite* coal to supply the deficiency of charcoal. It 
made in six months of 1856 763 tons of mostly grey iron, out 
of brown hematite ore from its own mines six miles southeast, 
mixed sometimes with Kent and Amenia ores. 

28. Macedonia Warm-blast Charcoal Furnace, two 

miles west of the village of Kent, owned by C. Edwards, M. 
Furnace Litchfield county Connecticut, built in 1826, was made 
hot blast ten years ago, and uses anthracite f and charcoal half 
and half. It is 9 feet across the bosh by 30 feet high inside, 
and made in twenty-two weeks of 1854 and 1855 about 800 
tons, out of brown hematite ore from the Amenia bank about ten 
miles distant by the road. 


♦Not inserted in Table A. 


t Ditto. 


B 


32 TABLE B.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN NEW YORK. 

29. Copake Hot-blast Steam Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by W. L. Pomeroy and Co. Copake P.O. Dutchess co’unty 
New York, situated three hundred yards southeast of the Har- 
laem B. B. Copake Station, 46 miles from Albany, 17 miles 
north of Sharon Furnace, was built in 1845, is 8£ feet wide 
across the bosh, and 32 feet high inside, and made in forty-one 
weeks of 1854 1,556J tons of principally car-wheel iron out of 
brown hematite ore dug close by the station. This Furnace 
uses a cone or “ tremie ” let down 4 feet into the tunnel head. 

30. Northeast Hot and Cold-blast Steam Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Mr. Dagon of Millerton, Dutchess county 
New York, situated ten and a half miles south of the last fur¬ 
nace, one mile east of the Harlaem railroad, and one and a half 
northeast of the Millerton Station, was built in 1847, eleven feet, 
but is now 8 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high inside, blows 
principally cold, and made in twenty-eight weeks of 1855 about 
940 tons of forge iron, out of brown hematite ore from its 
banks close by. It uses a cone ( premie ) 3 feet deep. 

31. Benedict’s Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace 

owned by Benedict and Co. Millerton, Dutchess county Neu 
York, situated one mile west of the last and on the west banl 
of a cutting for the Harlaem B. B. one mile north of Millertoi 
Station, was built in 1854 9 x 27 feet inside, and made ii 
thirty-two weeks of 1855, 993J tons of forge iron, out of browi 
hematite ore from the Salisbury bank two and a half miles east 
This furnace was to be made to run upon anthracite.* 

32. Amenia Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace 

owned by Mr. Gridley, Wasaic P.O. Amenia, Dutchess count) 
New York, situated at the Harlaem B. B. Wasaic Station, wa? 
built in 1825, thirty-three feet high, is now 8 by 30 inside and 
made in thirteen weeks of 1857 471 tons of best gun-barrel 
iron, out of brown hematite ore from Amenia bank close by. 

33. Dover Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the. 
Novelty Works, New York, L. S. Dutcher & Co. lessees, South 
Dover P.O. Dutchess county New York, is situated at the Har 
laem Bailroad Dover Station, on its east side, was built in 1835, 
is 8 feet across the bosh by 32J- feet high inside, uses sometime! 


*Not inserted in Table A. 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN NEW YORK. 


33 


from 70 to 200 lbs. of anthracite coal * to a charge, never runs 
cold, and makes about 600 tons of chiefly machine iron in the 
half of the year during which it runs, out of brown hematite ore 
principally from Amenia bank. Quaker-hill bank is 5 miles 
southeast and Clove-hill bank 7 miles west. 

34. White’s Dover Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by William White of Dover Plains, Dutchess county New York, 
is situated four miles south of the Harlaem Railroad Dover Plains 
Station, one mile northwest of Dover Furnace Station, in a notch 
of the mountain one-third of a mile west of the railroad, was built 
in 1846, is 8 by 32 feet inside, uses one fourth * anthracite, and 
made in 1853 1,326 tons of principally foundry metal out of 
brown hematite ore from the Foss bank two miles southwest. 

35. Beckman’s Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
E. D. Stirling, Foster & Co. Poughkeepsie, Dutchess county 
New York, is situated fourteen miles east of that village, and 
the north part of the town of Beekman, is 9 feet across the bosh 
by 36 feet high, charges 250 lbs of anthracite * to 10 bushels 
of charcoal and made in thirty-seven weeks of 1855 1,685 
tons of iron out of brown hematite ore, from its own banks in 
Unionvale town two miles north. The works were damaged by 
the freshet of August, 1856. The foundry stands ten miles 
from Poughkeepsie. 

36. Fishkill Charcoal Furnace, owned by Isaac White of 
Hopewell Dutchess county New York, is situated in the vil¬ 
lage of Hopewell, fifteen miles from Poughkeepsie, and six miles 
east of Fishkill. It formerly used some anthracite.* It made 
in 1857 304 tons. 

36.5. Haverstraw Furnace on the west side of Tappen Zee was rebuilt but 
never blown. 

36.6. Orange Furnace on Cedar pond near the Orange county southwest line 
was abandoned more than forty years ago. 

37. Greenwood Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 1, 

(No. 2 being Anthracite, see Table A. No. 17 page 5) owned 
by Robert P. and Peter P. Parrott, and managed by the latter, 
is situated half a mile east of the New York and Erie railroad 
station Greenwood, Orange county New York, was built in 


* Not included in the Anthracite Table A. 

3 


Table E 


34 


TABLE E.-CHARCOAL FURNACES OF NEW YORK. 


1811, and enlarged in 1825, to 11 feet in the bosh by 42 feet 
high, and made in 1856 1,500 tons of metal out of the same 
magnetic ores described in the account of Greenwood Furnace, 
No. 2. 

38. Southfield Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Peter Townsend & Co. No. 42 Pine street New Pork, is situated 
half a mile west of the New York and Erie railway station South- 
held, Orange county New York, fo^ty-three miles from the 
city, on the Mombaslia Creek, was built about the beginning 
of the century, rebuilt in 1839 12 by 40 inside, and made in one 
blast from October 11, 1850, to July 3 1853 with sixty-two 
days stoppages 6,353-J tons of metal out of magnetic ore from the 
Sterling Mines, six miles to the southeast. 

38.5. Woodbury Charcoal Furnace ten miles from Southfield on the turn¬ 
pike to Newburg eleven miles from Newburg is in ruins. 

38.6. Old Sterling Charcoal Furnace built by the Townsends, 5 x 25, and 
standing two miles north of Sterling No. 2, the furnace next to be described, has 
been an abandoned ruin for half a century past. 

39, Sterling Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 2, (No. 1 is 

anthracite) owned by the same parties as the last, is situated in 
Warwick township Orange county New York, four miles west 
of the New York and Erie railway station Sloatsburg and half 
a mile from the New Jersey State line, was built in 1847, is 13 
feet wide across the bosh by 48 feet high inside, and made in 
forty-eight weeks of 1857 2,520 tons of metal out of magnetic 
ores from the Lower California bank If miles north ; the Upper 
California bank 2 miles north ; Summit bank 2J miles north ; 
the great Sterling vein 2-J miles north; the 14 foot vein 4 miles 
north, and close by the Oregon bank, 8 feet thick; the Crossway 
bank 4f miles north ; the Mountain mine 4-J miles north; Long 
mine 4f miles north ; six or seven other small veins are near the 
furnace. 

39.5. Ringwood Furnace has been out of blast for over thirty years and is 
in ruins. 

39.6. Renton’s Patent Semi-Bituminous Coal Furnace 

No 1 owned by James Quimby of Newark, managed by Joseph 
Marteen, and situated on the Passaic river one mile north of 
the centre of Newark, was built in 1854 with a chamber 11x13 
feet inside, containing eight vertical tubes ten inches by eigh- 

E 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NEW JERSEY. 


35 


teen, holding each a ton of finely powdered magnetic ore mixed 
with 250 lbs. of ground Cumberland coal. It produced a little 
iron in 1854 and none afterwards. 

39.7, Renton’s Patent Semi-Bituminous Coal Furnace 

Ho. 2 was built in 1857 and began to work in April. Its cham¬ 
ber is 16 feet square and contains forty-eight tubes six inches by 
eighteen. A hammer is necessary in the operation and makes 
these furnaces properly forges. A description of the process 
may be found in the Scientific American of Feb. 11,1854 and in 
the American Iron Manufacturer’s Journal, Supplement, Jan. 
1853. 

40. Freedom Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Peter M. Ryerson of Pompton, Passaic county Hew Jersey, is 
situated at Wanauque on Ringwood river five miles north of 
Pompton, 5 miles south of Ringwood, 13 miles northwest of 
Paterson, 29 miles northwest of Hew York, was built in 1838, 
is 12 by 44 feet wide and high inside, and made in 1854 about 
2,000 tons of iron for the Pompton Rolling Mill, out of magnetic 
ore from Ironhill one and a half miles west and from Ringwood. 
Out of blast since the summer of 1855. Last leased and run by 
Wallace and Concklin. 

41. Pompton Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Wm. C. Yreeland and others of Bergen Point, Hudson county 
Hew Jersey, is situated on the Ramapo river and Paterson and 
Hamburg turnpike at Pompton, Passaic county Hew Jersey, 
twenty-four miles northwest from Hew York city, was built in 
1837, and formerly owned by the Ryerson Iron Company; is 12 
by 44 feet wide and high inside, and said by its owner to be the 
oldest three tuyere furnace in the United States. Its product 
was the same as that of the Furnace last described, and it went 
out of blast a few months earlier. 

41.5. Old Charlottenburg Charcoal Furnace, standing in a bend of the 
Pequannock river, seven miles above Bloomingdale, and eleven miles north of 
Rockaway in Morris county New Jersey, occupied the present site of the Charlotten¬ 
burg Forge (Table F. No. 31) and was abandoned in 1772 ; a piece of pig metal from 
it is preserved stamped with the date of 1770. 

41.6. Hope Furnace, four miles northwest of Rockaway, Morris county New 
Jersey, stopped thirty years ago. 

E 




30 TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NEW JERSEY. 

42. Wawayanda Warm-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Oliver Ames and Son of North Easton Massachusetts, 
and managed by J. A. Brown, is situated at the outlet of the 
Wawayanda Lake in Sussex county New Jersey, fifteen miles 
west of Stirling (see No. 39 above), was built in 1845, is 11 by 
42 feet wide and high inside and made in forty weeks of 1854 
1,852 tons of car-wheel metal from magnetic ore from its mines 
two and a half miles northeast. 

42.5. Hamburg Furnace, Sussex county New Jersey, has been out of blast for 
more than thirty years and is a ruin. 

43. Franklin Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
the New Jersey Franklinite company, Jas. H. Holdane presi¬ 
dent No. 84 Washington street New York, is situated in Frank¬ 
lin Village, eighteen miles north of Dover and twelve from the 
Newton railroad station. It is one of the oldest and perhaps the 
most widely celebrated of all the American furnaces by reason 
of the peculiarity of its ores and consequently of its iron. Built 
in 1770 it was last repaired in 1854 with an 8 foot bosh and 22 
feet high, its tunnel head of 8 feet width contracted downwards 
to make (with anthracite*) iron and zinc together of which last 
metal its ores contain as much as 20 per cent. The experiment 
did not succeed and the stack is to be again changed and steam 
applied in lieu of water power. Previous to 1852 the furnace ran 
with charcoal upon brown hematite and magnetic ores combined, 
the former coming from Edsall’s mine near Hamburg, three 
miles north, among the Lower Silurian Limestones, the latter 
from mines close by and from Ogden’s mine five miles south¬ 
east. The franklinite or zinc iron ore is mined three hundred 
yards north of the stack. 

43.5. Clinton Charcoal Furnace owned by the Pequannock company, and 
situated four miles north-northwest of Charlottenburg, nearly two miles from the 
Pequannock river, on a run from Buck and Cedar ponds, has been idle for ten years, 
the forge attached to it stopping in 1S53. 

44. Oxford Steam Hot-blast Charcoal and Anthracite 
Furnace, owned by Chas. Scranton & Co., managed by Chas. 
Scranton, situated at Oxford, Warren county New Jersey, on a 

branch of Pequest Bi ver, near where the Warren railroad crosses 

* Not nothed in Table A. 

E 



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HARPERS FEim 

















































































CHAECOAL FUENACES OF EASTEEN PENNSYLVANIA. 37 

it five miles southeast of Belvidere. It is said to be the oldest re¬ 
maining furnace in the Union, ancient castings being found in chim¬ 
ney backs a century old, and pigs are found stamped 1755 (45?) 
It is in complete repair and runs two-thirds of the year on char¬ 
coal and one-third on anthracite, sometimes using one-sixth an¬ 
thracite.* It is 8 feet wide across the bosh by 3S feet high and 
made in 1857 906 tons of car-wheel iron nearly all of it manufac¬ 
tured into wheels upon the spot. Formerly the iron was rafted 
in Durham boats from Foul Rift down the Delaware to Phila¬ 
delphia. Its ores are black magnetic from banks half a mile 
distant, worked since 1743. 

45. Lehigh Cold-blast Furnace, owned by Balliot’s heirs, 
Levan & Balliot lessees, N. Whitehall Lehigh county Penn¬ 
sylvania, A. Balliot manager, is situated on Trout creek 
behind the Kittatinny mountain, four miles southwest of 
the Lehigh Water Gap, was built in 1826, is 7J by 31 feet 
wide and high, inside, and made in twenty-six weeks of 1857 
554f tons of iron out of brown hematite ore from across the 
mountain nine miles off, southeast. 

45. Maria Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by S. Balliot & Co., and managed by S. Balliot of Weiss- 
port, Carbon county Pennsylvania, is situated on Big or Poco 
Creek 2 miles from Weissport and 3 from Parryville Station on 
the Lehigh Yalley railroad. It is supposed to be a very old fur¬ 
nace, rebuilt in 1834 and again in 1845, is 8 feet wide by 30 
feet high inside and made in thirty weeks of 1S56 1152 tons of 
hot-blast iron out of brown hematite ore from Whitehall, Lehigh 
county. 

47. Pennville Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Stephen Balliot’s heirs and managed by John Balliot 

of North Whitehall Lehigh county Pennsylvania, is situated in 

Carbon county 4 miles southwest of Lehighton Station on the 

Lehigh Yalley railroad, at the north fort of the Blue Mountain 

near Dinkie’s tavern. It was built in 1837, rebuilt in 1853, is 9 

feet wide by 32 feet high inside, and is reported to have made 

as much as 1600 tons of cold-blast metal in each of the years 
# 

* Not noticed in Table A. 

£ 



38 TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

1854 and 1855 (since when it has stood idle) c at of brown hcma 
tite ore. 

48. Hampton Cold-blast Furnace, No. 1, owned by 
Frederick Sigmund & Co. Hereford P.O. Berks county 
Pennsylvania, is situated in Lehigh county twelve miles south¬ 
west from Allentown, near Sheimersville at the head of the 
north branch of the Perkiomen creek, Upper Milford township, 
twenty-five miles east of Beading. It was built in 1809, is 6 
feet wide at the top of the bosh and 32 feet high inside, and 
made in twenty-eight weeks of 1857 722 tons of “ first-class car- 
wheel 55 iron, out of neutral and somewhat magnetic black oxide 
from Barto’s banks in Washington township seven miles off 
southwest, mixed with brown hematite ore from the neighbor¬ 
ing Lower Silurian Limestone land. 

49. Mary Ann Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Horace Trexler and managed by Dr. E. Trexler, Long Swamp 
P.O. Berks county Pennsylvania, is situated five miles from 
Hampton furnace last described, on the northeast borders of 
Berks county, 18 miles northeast of Beading, in Long Swamp 
township, at the head of Little Lehigh Creek, 9 miles east-south¬ 
east of Kutztown, and 8 miles south-southwest of Trexlertown. 
It was built in 179 7, is 7 feet wide across the bosh by 30 feet 
high inside, and made in 1856 about 700 tons of metal out of 
three-fourths brown hematite and one-fourth magnetic ores from 
beds within a radius of two miles. 

50. Oley Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace was formerly 
owned by Udee, and afterwards by Snyder, stood idle about 12 
years and was started again for a short time four years ago by 
Dr. Herbst, Palm and others and is now owned by Murkells and 
Levan, and managed by Samuel Murkells, Pricetown, Berks 
county Pennsylvania, is situated two miles east of Pricetown 
and eleven and a half miles northeast of Beading. It is still 
older than the two furnaces last described, having been built in 
1770, is 9 by 30 inside, and made in thirty-six weeks of 1857 
757i tons of wheel iron out of brown hematite ore from Deish- 
ler’s bank eight miles northeast, mixed with magnetic ore from 
Zinner’s bank at Bothruckville, twelve miles north. 

E 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


39 


51. Sally Ann or Rockland Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Jacob Y. R. Hunter of Reading and 
managed by J. H. Hunter, Dreysville P.O. Berks county Penn¬ 
sylvania, is situated on Sacony creek, five miles south of Kutz- 
town and sixteen miles from Reading, was built in 1791, is 8 
feet wide across the top of the bosh and 32 feet high and made 
in 1856 about 600 tons of iron out of one-fourth brown hematite 
ore from Trexlertown or the old Moselem bank, and three-fourths 
“ flat ore.” 

52. Mount Laurel (but formerly Alsace) Cold-blast 
Charcoal Furnace, owned by W. H. Clymer & Co. of Reading, 
Berks county Pennsylvania, is situated on Mount Laurel creek, 
6 miles north-northeast of Reading, 1J miles east of the State 
.road to Easton. It was built in 1836, is 8 by 30 feet inside, and 
made in forty-five weeks of 1855 951 and in forty-four weeks of 
1856 952 tons of car-wheel iron out of brown hematite ores 
from the old Moselem bank eight miles west and from Dumm’s 
and Hefner’s banks six and ten miles off on the flank of the 
South Mountain, mixed with a magnetic ore, similar to the Corn¬ 
wall, from the Wheatfield banks in Spring township thirteen 
miles southwest and seven from Reading. 

53. Maiden Creek Coldlblast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by George Merkle of Leonardsville, Berks county Pennsylvania, 
is situated twenty miles north of Reading on Maiden creek, 
was built in 1851, is 7-J- by 31 feet inside and made in forty-six 
weeks of 1857 1,021 tons of metal out of brown hematite ores 
from the Moselem bank seven miles off, the Coxtown bank ten 
miles and the Trexlertown bank thirteen miles east. 

54. Mount Penn Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Shalter and Kauffman of Reading, Berks county Pennsylva¬ 
nia, is situated on the west side of the Schuylkill river half a 
mile off and two miles from Reading, was built in 1827, is 8 
by 31 inside, and made in six months of 1856 perhaps 500 
tons. 

55. Hampton Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal and Anthra¬ 
cite Furnace, Ho. 2, owned by E. and G. Brooke of 

E 


40 


TABLE E. 


CHARCOAL FURNACES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


Birdsborough, Berks county Pennsylvania, is situated on Hay 
creek, two miles south of Birdsborough, was built in 1840, 8 
feet wide by 28 feet high inside, and made in 1854 1,760 tons of 
metal. It* makes some anthracite iron every year. Its ores 
are magnetic from Jones’ and the Warwick banks about six 
miles south. 

56. Joanna Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Win. Darling, Levi B. Smith, B. H. Smith and Win. D. 
Smith, is situated on Hay creek, nine miles southwest of Birds¬ 
borough and twelve miles south-southeast of Heading, was built 
in 1794, is 7-J- feet across the bosh by 28 feet high inside, and 
made in fifty weeks of 1855 1,162 tons of metal out of magne¬ 
tic ore “from Jones’ bank two and a half miles off and an equal 
distance from Morgantown, and from the Warwick bank near 
St. Mary’s seven miles off. 

5 7. Hopewell Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Clingan & Buckley, and managed by Dr. Clingan, Hopewell 
Furnace P.O. Berks county Pennsylvania, is situated in the 
southeast corner of Berks county on French creek, 40 miles above 
Philadelphia and 14 below Beading, five miles south of Doug- 
lassville Station on the Beading railroad, and is just a century 
old, having been built in 1759, is 6J by 35 feet inside, and made 
in forty-three weeks of 1856 796 tons of forge iron out of mag¬ 
netic ore from the Chester county mines south of the furnace 
mixed with a small quantity of brown hematite. 

58, Warwick Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
David Potts Jun. of Warwick Furnace, Chester county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, is situated in Warwick township on the south branch of 
French creek, 13 miles w T est of Phcenixville, 3 miles west-south¬ 
west of Coventry village, ten miles southwest of Pottstown, is still 
older than the last, having been built in 1736 and is believed by 
its owner to have been in operation for a longer or shorter 
period of every year since that time. It is 7|- feet wfide across 
the top of the bosh and 30 feet high inside and made in thirty- 
nine weeks of 1857 759 tons of boiler plate metal (such as it has 


E 


♦Not noticed in Table A. 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


41 


exclusively been making for sixteen years past) out of magnetic 
ore from the Warwick, the St. Mary’s, Jones’s six miles off 
north of west and the Chester county mines two and a half 

miles off. 

** 

58.5. Mount Eden, Rock or Greenwood Furnace eight miles north of 
Whiterock, six miles south of Strasburg, was abandoned ten years ago and is in 
ruins. See Greenwood Forge Table F. No. 10Y. 

58.6. Isabella Fumace was converted into a Forge in 1853. See Table F. 
No. 103. 

59. Elizabeth Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by George Dawson 
Coleman of Lebanon, was abandoned in 1856 for want of wood. It is a very old 
furnace built in IV56 at the southern base of the South Mountain in the northern 
part of Lancaster county Pennsylvania, near Litiz, fourteen miles north of Lancas¬ 
ter. It is 9 by 28 inside and made in fifty weeks of 1855 1,424 tons of metal out of 
Cornwall grey magnetic ore. 

41 

60. Mount Hope Cold-blast Furnace, owned by Ed. B. 
& A. Bates Grubb, and managed by ¥m. Boyd of Mount Hope 
P.O. Lancaster county Pennsylvania, is situated on the Big 
Chiquisalunga creek between Lancaster and Lebanon six miles 
south of the latter. Built in 1785, it was rebuilt of’sandstone 
several times, last in 1824 or ’25. It is 7 by 27 inside, and 
makes perhaps 1,000 tons of grey iron per annum for the neigh¬ 
boring forges out of grey magnetic ore from the Cornwall mine 
three miles off to the north. 

60.5. Mount Vernon Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace No. 1 owned by E. B. & 
A. B. Grubb, and situated on the Conewago river and on the Lancaster and Harris¬ 
burg railroad, fifteen miles from Lancaster, was built in 1800 and stopped in 1852. 
It was 8^26 and used both Cornwall grey magnetic and Columbia brown hematite 
ores to make foundry iron for Baltimore and Philadelphia, 35 tons a week. 

60.6. Mount Vernon Furnace No. 2 stands near the last, has the same owners 
and was built in 1835, then turned into a forge and back into a furnace again. See 
Table F. No. 111.6. 

61. Colebrook Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
William Coleman, stands on the Conewago creek in Lebanon 
county Pennsylvania, and on the road from Lancaster to Ann- 
ville, ten miles south southwest from Lebanon. It is very old, 
having been built in 1745, is 9 feet wide inside across the bosb 
and 30 high, and made in forty-three weeks of 1856 1,036 tons 

E 




42 TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

of wheel and forge iron, out of the grey magnetic ore of the 
Cornwall mine seven miles off to the east. 

62. Cornwall Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Robt. W. Coleman, is six miles south of Lebanon in Lebanon 
county Pennsylvania, of the same age and present size as the 
last, uses the same ore and made in forty-eight weeks of 1856 
1,020 tons of similar metal. 

63. Manada Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
E. B. Grubb of Burlington New Jersey & C. B. Grubb of 
Lancaster, and managed by J. Care, West Hanover P.O. Dau¬ 
phin county Pennsylvania, stands on Manada Creek in West 
Hanover township, Dauphin county, one mile south of Manada 
Gap in the Blue Mountains, and 6 miles from the Union Canal, 
at a point 15 miles below Lebanon, and thirteen miles northeast 
of Harrisburg. Built in 1837 it was reduced in size in 1839 to 
8 feet across the bosh by 33-| feet high inside, and made in 1855 
1,598 tons of metal out of brown hematite (cold-short) from 
Chestnut-hill near Columbia, mixed with grey magnetic ore from 
Cornwall near Lebanon. 

t 

64. Georgiana Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by Dr. Lewis Heck of Dauphin, stands nearly on 
the site of the old Emmeline Furnace (built about 1835) 
on the Susquehanna river and canal and railroad a mile and 
a half above Dauphin, Dauphin county Pennsylvania. It was 
built in 1855, 9 by 31, made 42 tons a week for four months 
and has been idle ever since. It used magnetic ore from Dills- 
burg in York county, eight miles south-southeast of Meclianics- 
burg. 

64.5. Victoria Charcoal Furnace, on Clark’s creek eight miles above Geor- 
gianna Furnace last described has stood idle a dozen years and is in ruins. 

65. Rock Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, in Lancaster county twelve miles 
southwest of Penningtonville was built in 1832, 8 by 29, made perhaps a thousand 
tons in 1854, was stripped of its machinery and is abandoned. 

66. Conowingo Steam and Water Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned and managed by J. M. Hopkins, stands on the 
creek nearly two miles southeast of Buck P.O. Lancaster county 
Pennsylvania and sixteen miles south-southeast of the city. It 

£ 



CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


43 


was built about fifty years ago, is 7£ feet wide by 30 high inside 
and bas made in eight months of each year perhaps 800 tons of 
iron out of brown hematite ore from banks five miles off to the 
northeast. 

67. York Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by J. 
Bair & Co., leased by Hopkins and Bair, and managed by John 
Bair, stands one mile below Colemanville, York county Pennsyl¬ 
vania (or Shunks Ferry over the Susquehanna river), was built 
in 1830, is 8 by 32 inside and made in 1855 perhaps 1,000 tons 
of car-wheel iron out of Conowingo brown hematite ore from 
Drum’s township. 

68. Margaretta Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Himes and Hahn and leased and 
managed by Thomas Himes, stands on Cabin Branch creek in 
Canadocholey Yalley, Lower Windsor township, 4 miles south 
of Horthern Central Railroad between York and Wrightsville, 
2 miles west of Tidewater Canal, and 4J miles south of Wrights- 
ville, York county Pennsylvania. Built in 1825 and rebuilt in 
1837 it is 7£ feet wide across the bosh by 33 feet high, and 
made in thirty-eight weeks of 1854 about 800 tons of metal out 
of brown hematite ore from a large bank near by, and another 
two miles west. It has made no iron since 1854. 

69. Chestnut Grove Steam and Water Cold-blast 
Charcoal Furnace, owned by Charles Wharton jun. stands 
half way between Carlisle and Chambersburg in Adams county 
Pennsylvania, half a mile off the main road, was built in 1830, 
is 8£ feet by 33 inside, and made in thirty-one weeks of 1856 
650 tons of car-wheel iron out of magnetic ore from a mine one 
mile east, mixed with one-fourth brown hematite from a bank 
five miles north. 

70. Carlisle Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by Peter Ege, Boiling Spring P.O. Cumberland 
county Pennsylvania, stands at the entrance of the Boiling Spring 
water into Yellow Breeches creek five miles southeast of Car¬ 
lisle, was built in 1815, and afterwards enlarged to 8J feet in the 
bosh and 27 feet high, and made in six months of 1856 about 
300 tons of forge iron out of brown hematite ore from a bank 
two and a half miles south, mixed with magnetic ore from a 
mine six miles east-solitheast. 


E 


44 TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

# 

71. Holly Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace in Ilolly Gap on Mountain Creek 
six miles south of Carlisle was built in 1795 and in 1855 torn down to give place to 
a paper mill. It was 8 by 33 and had rich cold short ore banks, one quarter of a 
mile off, another six miles southwest. 

72. Pine Grove Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Wm. M. Watts, stands with Laurel Forge on Mountain creek 
main branch of Yellow Breeches creek, 14 miles southwest of 
Carlisle, and 16 miles due north of Gettysburg, in Cumberland 
county Pennsylvania. It is very old (1770), is feet wide 
across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in twenty-three 
weeks of 1857 668 tons of forge metal, out of brown hematite 
ore from banks half a mile distant. 

73. Big Pond Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Schoch, Sons & Co. and managed by Isaac S. Matthew, 
stands on Big Pond stream in Big Pond Gap, two miles south of 
Walnut Bottom road, six miles east of Shippensburg in Cumber¬ 
land county Pennsylvania, was built in 1836, is 8J by 33 inside, 
and made in twenty-two weeks of 1857 462J tons of iron out of 
brown hematite ore from mines one mile west. 

74. Cumberland Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, ten miles southwest of Car¬ 
lisle, situated on Yellow Breeches creek, north side of South Mountain, 11 miles 
northeast of Shippensburg 7 miles west of Mount Holly, 8 miles east of Big Pond. 
Has been entirely abandoned from scarcity of charcoal, and the property divided 
and sold ; the stack is being demolished to make room for a paper mill. It was built 
in 1794 and used brown hematite ores from the Peach Orchard bed 3 miles west, 
McCulloch’s and Goodpart’s beds 2 miles northwest, Lee bank 5 miles north ; Dills- 
town 13 miles due east. 

74.5. Southampton Furnaces No. 1 and 2 in Southampton township, Franklin 
county Pennsylvania, three miles south of Shippensburg, have made no iron since 
1851 and were torn down in 1854. A large forge near them was torn down in 1849. 

74.6. Mary Ann Furnace, in the same town and four miles distant from Ship¬ 
pensburg, last owned and worked by Charles Wharton junior, was abandoned in 
1851.—Mary and Augusta are mentioned as names of furnaces in this district, out 
of blast. 

75. Caledonia Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Thaddens Stephens’ heirs and managed by Henry Sloat, 
stands ten miles east of Chambersburg on the Chambersburg 
and Baltimore pike in the South Mountain, at the crossing of 
Conecocheagne creek, was bnilt in 1837, is 8 feet wide across 
the top of the bosh and 33 feet high inside, and made in 1855 
perhaps 800 tons of metal ont of brown hematite ore from 
banks four miles west. 

E 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


45 


76, Mont Alto Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Holker Hughes, Mont Alto P.O. Franklin county Pennsylvania, 
situated nine miles southeast of Chamhershurg, 1 mile from 
Funkstown, was built in 1807 and never rebuilt, is 9-| by 30 feet 
inside and makes annually about 900 tons of metal out of brown 
hematite ore dug within 300 yards southeast of the furnace, 
four banks in a quarter of a mile. 

77, Carrick Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by J. 
R. Brewster, leased by S. Walker and managed by ¥m. 
Noonan, Fannetsburg P.O. Franklin county Pennsylvania, stands 
on the west bank of the Conecocheague, 4 miles south-southwest 
of Fannetsburg, 8 miles north of Loudon. It was built in 1828, 
is 7 feet wide by 30 high inside and made in 1855 200 tons of 
iron out of Upper Silurian red fossil ore found 2J miles south¬ 
west, cropping all along the west base of the mountain (in For¬ 
mation Y. Clinton Group), from about Fannetsburg down to 
Louden, for 15 miles; another opening half a mile west of 
furnace in not quite so good ore; another 2J- miles north, the 
best of all. 

78. Valley Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by J. 
Beaver and leased and managed by J. Polsgrove, Loudon P.O. 
Franklin county Pennsylvania, stands two miles north of Lou¬ 
don on West Conecocheague Creek, close by the forge, but was 
built long after it, say 35 years ago. It is only 5-J feet wide 
across the bosh and 28 feet high, shares its blast with the forge 
and made in 1856 perhaps 500 tons of forge metal out of brown 
hematite ore found about four miles north. It has been out of 
blast three years. 

78.5. Mount Pleasant Furnace and Forge four miles south of Loudon were 
both destroyed together in 1843. 

78.6. Loudon Furnace and Forge in the edge of Loudon were destroyed in 
1840. 

79. Franklin Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by B. 
Phreaner’s heirs, St. Thomas P.O Franklin county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, Dr. Samuel Behm (Lebanon) and Chas. Mulley (Pinegrove) 
administrators. Situated 3 miles northwest of Campbellstown 
(which is 7 \ miles from Chambersburg, towards Loudon), and 
4 miles from the brick tavern (3J miles east of Loudon), it is 7^ 
by 30 feet inside and stopped in 1853 and has made nothing 

E 


46 


TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MARYLAND. 


since. It is in good order however and lias brown hematite ore 
banks (Beaver’s) near Loudon, and the old Hensam hank half a 
mile west and a third one and a half mile north. 

80. Warren Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by W. Bower’s heirs, P. Lewis and Co. Lessees, Sylvan P.O. 
Franklin county Pennsylvania, is situated one and a half mile 
north of the State line in Warren township, on little Cove 
Creek, 6 miles from Millstone Point on the Chesapeake and Ohio 
Canal, in a cove of the North Mountain opening southwards 
and filled with upper silurian rocks, a cove lined with Formation 
Y. with its fossil ore. It was built about 1833, is by 28 feet 
inside, and made in 25 weeks of 1856 535-J tons of rolling- 
mill iron out of red fossil ore from a mine one mile west, mixed 
with some brown hematite from Baltimore and the Point of 
Pocks. 

81. Principio Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Joseph and Geo. P. Whitaker of Philadelphia and managed 
by G. P. Whitaker, is situated on the Baltimore railroad 
three miles east of the Susquehanna, is 8J feet wide across the 
bosh by 32 feet high inside, and made in thirty-seven weeks of 
1856 about 800 tons of metal out of ores of all kinds from 
Baltimore and Harford counties and from New Castle, Delaware. 

82. Lagrange Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Pogers and Sons of Pittsburg, Jarrettsville P.O. Harford county 
Maryland, is situated at the Falls of Deer Creek, thirty miles 
north of Baltimore, six miles from the Pennsylvania line, three 
• miles northeast of Coopstown, eight miles from Harford county 
line, nine miles north of Belair, twelve west of Darlington, and 
ten south-southwest of Peachbottom in Pennsylvania on the Sus¬ 
quehanna. It was built in 1836 ; is 6 by 35 feet inside, and is 
reported to make in six months of each year about 780 tons out 
of brown hematite ore from a bank six miles a little south of 
west and seven-eighths of a mile south of the State line. It has 
a small bed in Westminster township Carroll county Mary¬ 
land. 

83. Sarah Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by P. A. & S. Small of York in Pennsylvania and 
managed by A. P. McCombs, is situated 24 miles north of Balti- 

E 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MARYLAND. 


47 


more, near the head of Winter’s Hun on the road leading from 
Jarrettsville to the Old Baltimore Hoad, ten miles northwest of 
Belair, twenty miles south of McCall’s Ferry and five miles 
southwest of the Bocks of Deer Creek. It was built in 1841, 
rebuilt in 1851, is 6-J- by 31 feet inside, and made in thirty-five 
weeks of 1856 971 tons of metal out of hematite ore from banks 
two miles to the south of it. 

84. Harford Steam and Water Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Bichard Green of Cockeyville, and man¬ 
aged by William Carmell, is situated four miles west of Perry- 
mansville, on the head waters of Bush Biver, near the railroad 
bridge, and twenty-five miles northeast of Baltimore; was built 
in 1828, rebuilt in 1845 ; is 7 \ feet wide by 33 high inside, and 
made in forty-six weeks of 1857 1,421 tons of car-wheel metal 
out of carbonite ores from the shores of Bush Biver, Gunpowder 
Biver and Caba Biver, mixed with hematite ore from banks 
alongside of the Northern Central railroad. 

85. Locust Grove Steam and Water Hot-blast Char¬ 
coal Furnace, owned by Bobert Howard of Baltimore and 
managed by George B. Burroughs, Stemmer’s Bun P.O. Bal¬ 
timore county Maryland, is situated close by the Stemmer’s 
Bun Station on the Baltimore railroad. It was built in 1844, 
is 7-J- feet wide by 30 feet high inside, and made in thirty weeks 
of 1857 1,277 tons of metal out of hematite ore. 

86. Gunpowder Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Bobert Howard of Baltimore and managed by John S. Hawes 
of Little Gunpowder P.O. Baltimore county Maryland, is 
situated on the Philadelphia turnpike fourteen miles east of Bal¬ 
timore at the Great Falls of Gunpowder six miles from Locust 
Grove Furnace and half a mile north of Patterson’s nail mill. 
It was built in 1846, is about 8 feet wide across the top of the 
bosh by 31 feet high inside, and made in thirty weeks of 1856 
perhaps 1,100 tons of foundry and forge metal out of hematite 
ores. 

87. Chesapeake Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

No. 1, owned by S. S. Lee & Company and leased by Hugh 
Jenkins, stands just outside the limits of the City of Balti¬ 
more in Canton on the east side of the harbor. No. 1 built 
in 1815 is 8 feet wide by 32 feet high inside and is reported to 

E 


48 


TABLE E.-CIIARCOAL FURNACES IN MARYLAND. 


have made in fifty weeks of eacli year about 2,200 tons of 
chiefly forge metal out of argillaceous hematite ores from the 
neighborhood. 

88. Chesapeake Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace 

No. 2 was built in 1853 and is a duplicate of No. 1, making out 
of the same ores the same quantity of iron. The markets of 
these furnaces are in Massachusetts, at Philadelphia, Richmond 
and Wheeling on the Ohio River. 

89. Cedar Point Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace 

A, formerly known as the Munsen Iron Works, is owned by 
Peter Mowel of Baltimore and leased by Hugh Jenkins. It 
stands on Boston street Canton on the east side of Baltimore 
harbor beside the Philadelphia railroad just above the station 
two miles from the centre of the city and a mile north of the 
Chesapeake furnaces last described. Built in 1843, 8 feet by 31 
inside, it made in fifty weeks of 1856 about 2,700 tons of car- 
wdieel iron for Philadelphia, Norristown and Fall River in 
Massachusetts, out of brown hematite ores. 

90. Cedar Point Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace 

A, standing alongside of B, was built two years later, in 
1845, of the same size, and made in the same time 2,838 tons ot 
similar metal from the same ores. 

91. Maryland Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace 

No. 1, owned by H. W. Ellicott and Brother, Box 55 Baltimore 
city P.O. stands on the south side of the Baltimore basin, was 
built in 1840, is 9 feet wide by 30 high inside, and made in 
forty-eight weeks of 1854 about 2,000 tons of forge metal out of 
argillaceous hematite ores from the Covington bank four miles 
south of Baltimore, Williams’s bank at Annapolis junction and 
Miller’s bank fifteen miles southwest on the Washington rail¬ 
road ; since when it has made nothing. 

92. Maryland Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace 

No. 2 stands beside No. 1 but is much younger not being built 
till 1853. Its size however is the same and it made in twenty- 
nine weeks of 1856 1,058 tons of forge metal. The market is 
in Baltimore. 

93. Laurel Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by D. M. Reese, Laurel Furnace, Baltimore Maryland, is situated 

E 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MARYLAND. 


49 


side by side with South Baltimore Furnace, No. 118 of Table 
A, on the south Baltimore wharves, one and a half miles from 
the centre of the city. It was built in 1846, is 9 feet wide by 
31 feet high inside, and made in forty-four weeks of 1855 2,162 
tons of metal out of the ores described under No. 118 Anthra¬ 
cite Table A. 

94. Cecelia Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by John Ahern, is situated on Patapsco River on 
tide, southeast from Baltimore and just beyond the city limits, 
was built in 1854, is 9 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high 
inside, and made in forty-three weeks of 1857 1,881-J tons of 
metal out of the Baltimore bone and chocolate, chiefly carbonate, 
ores from banks about four miles northeast of Baltimore along 
the Philadelphia turnpike. 

95.5. Patapsco Furnace, owned by W. H. Ellicott, situated one mile east of 
Maryland Furnace No. 91 at Locust Point made no iron after 1849 and was torn 
down in 1853. 

95.6. Curtis’s Creek Furnace, owned by Wilkens Glenn of Baltimore and situ¬ 
ated in Patapsco county eight miles southeast of Baltimore, is very old and in a 
ruinous condition, the machinery removed or scattered round. It stopped finally 
in 1851. 

95. Patuxent Steam Hot-Blast Charcoal Furnaces, No. 1 and No. 2, owned 
formerly by Lemmon and Glenn, and situated on little Patuxent River three miles 
south of Annapolis junction, were almost the same size with the Maryland Furnaces; 
were dismantled and destroyed in June 1856 for want of wood and ore. Never more 
than one furnace was in blast at once. These furnaces occupied the site of a much 
older puddling furnace long since destroyed. Capacity about 50 tons a week. 

97, Elk Ridge Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by the Great Falls Iron Company and 
managed by Jos. D. Pettit, Elk Ridge Landing P.O. Ann Arun¬ 
del county Maryland, is situated on the site of the old Howard 
Furnace built in 1826, at Elk Ridge Landing on the Washing¬ 
ton railroad. It was built in 1854, is 9J feet wide by 32 feet 
high inside, and made in thirty weeks of 1857 1,564£ tons of 
chiefly forge iron for Baltimore, Wheeling and the Avalon Iron 
Works. 

97.5 Savage Furnaces, Nos. 1 and 2, owned by the Savage Manufacturing 
Company and standing quite in ruins near the Washington railroad twenty miles 
from Baltimore have been out of blast for twenty years. There is a cupola furnace 
here, never used and now dilapidated. 


4 


50 


TABLE E.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MARYLAND. 


98. Muirkirk Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Win. E. Coffin & Co. Boston, and managed by George 
Cary, is situated in Prince George’s county Maryland, twenty- 
five miles from Baltimore southwest along tlie railroad to 
Washington; w r as built about 1842; is 8 feet wide by 28 feet 
high inside, and is reported to have made in 1856 2,200 tons of 
metal out of the same kind of ore as that at the Chesapeake 
Furnaces. 

99. Elba Steam and Water Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by James W. Tyson of Sykesville, Carroll county Maryland, 
is situated on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, at Sykesville, 
thirty-one miles west of Baltimore; was built about 1847, is 8J 
feet wide by 30 feet high inside, and made in thirty-three w T eeks 
of 1857 965 tons of car-wheel metal out of hematite ore from 
banks two miles north of Mount Airy on the Baltimore and 
Ohio railroad, forty miles west from Baltimore, in Frederick 
county, mixed with magnetic ore from mines two miles north of 
the furnace and one and a half miles northeast from Sykesville 
in Carroll county and with carbonates got two miles from the 
Relay House in Howard county on the Washington railroad. 

100. Catoctin Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, Ho. 1, owned 
by Jacob M. Kunkle of Frederick county Maryland, and R. 
Fitzhugh, is situated twelve miles north-northeast from Fre¬ 
derick and three miles from Mechanicstown; was built in 1774, 
■rebuilt in 1787, and again rebuilt about 1831, is 9 feet wide by 
33 feet high inside, and annually makes in about thirty weeks 
perhaps 1,000 tons of forge and foundry metal out of ores from 
Fitzhugh and Kunkle’s bank one mile north of the furnace. 

101. Catoctin Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

Ho. 2 was built in 1857 alongside of Ho. 1 of the same size to 
run upon the same ores. 

102. Antietam Hot-blast Coke and Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by John Herine of Bloomsborough, Washington county, 
and the heirs of Wm. B. Clark, has been leased by Herine, Yeakle 
& Co. Sharpsburg, Maryland, and managed by Jacob Hewitt. 
It is situated at the junction of Antietam Creek with the Poto¬ 
mac River, seven miles above Harper’s Ferry by the country 
road and nine miles by the canal, was built in 1845, is 15 feet 
across the bosh by 50 feet high inside, and made in twenty 
E 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


51 


weeks of 1857 1,465 tons of hard metal for 'Wheeling and Bos¬ 
ton. Old Antietam furnace was bnilt on this spot as much as 
a century ago. 

103. Greenspring Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by J. D. Roman & Co. and managed by B. F. Roman, Green¬ 
spring P.O. Washington county Maryland, is situated three 
miles from Clearspring, six miles from Hedgesville and one 
mile from McCoy’s Ferry and the canal, was built in 1848, is 8 
by 35 inside, and made in thirty-two weeks of 1856 677 tons of 
forge and foundry metal out of hematite ore from banks three 
miles to the north and also one mile to the south of it. 

104. Schickshinny Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned and managed by B. D. Koons of Nanticoke, 
Luzerne county Pennsylvania, is situated in the gap of Schick- . 
shinny mountain seventeen miles below Wilkesbarre where 
the creek enters the elbow of the Susquehanna from the north, 
and on the west side of the creek. It was built in 1846, is 9 
feet wide across the bosh by 33 feet high inside, and made 
in about nine weeks of 1856 300 tons of metal out of two-thirds 
hematite ore from near Bloomsburg in Columbia county 
twenty-two miles down the river, mixed with one-third bog ore 
from Newport township, Luzerne county, four miles east of it. 

105. Catawisssa Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by G. and R. Shuman, Maineville, Columbia county, Penn¬ 
sylvania, is situated on Catawissa Creek five miles east of the 
village. It was built in 1815, is 7i by 28 inside and made 
about 1,000 tons of metal per annum in 1855 and ’56, was sold 
and went out of blast Jan. 8. 1857, and is probably abandoned. 

106. Penn Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by J. 
Penn Fincher, stands on Catawissa Creek, half mile east of 
the village and about one hundred yards from the Catawissa 
railroad in Columbia county Pennsylvania. It was built in 
1845, is 7 feet wide by 30 high inside, and made in twenty-four 
weeks in 1856 790 tons of forge metal out of the fossil ore of 
Montour’s ridge across the river to the north. 

107. Esther Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by S. 
B. Diemer of Catawissa, Columbia county Pennsylvania, stands 
about three and a half miles south of Catawissa, on Big Roaring 

E 


52 TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

creek waters, where the Catawissa and Bear Gap road crosses ; 
was built in 1836, is 7J feet wide across the bosh by 28 feet 
high and made in thirty-six weeks of 1855 918 tons of metal 
out of Upper Silurian fossil ore from the Hemlock mines near 
Bloomsburg, seven miles north, at the foot of Montour’s ridge. 

107.5. Briar Creek Furnace, owned by C. Kalbfus has not been in blast since 
1849. 

108. Paxinas Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Taggart, Firman & Barton, Paxinas P.O. Northumberland 
county Pennsylvania, stands on the right bank of the Shamokin 
Creek five miles north of Shamokin half a mile below and oppo¬ 
site to Peed’s Station on the Shamokin and Sunbury railroad. 
It was built in 1847, is 7^ by 30 feet inside, and made in 
eighteen weeks of 1855 350 tons of metal out of fossil ore from 
Dry Yalley, Union county, since when it has stood idle and is 
not likely to be used again. 

109. Forest Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Kaufman and Peber in White Deer township Union county 
Pennsylvania, four miles west of Watson town Station on the 
Sunbury and Erie railroad, and were Sugar Yalley turnpike 
crosses White Deer creek, was built in 1846, is 9 feet wide in¬ 
side by 35 feet high and made in all of 1856 1,142 tons of metal. 

110. Berlin Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Clement and Charles Brooke and managed by J. Church, 
four miles south of ITartleton Union county Pennsylvania, 
stands on Penn’s creek at Jack’s Mountain gap on the 
Hartleton and Musser Yalley road, four miles south of 
Hartleton, eighteen miles southwest of Lewisburg, twelve miles 
west of New Berlin. It was built in 1827, is 6 feet wide inside 
by 32 feet high and made in all of 1855 828 tons of iron. 

111. Beaver Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Middleswarth, Kerns & Co. and managed 
by J. C. Wilson, two and a half miles west of Middleburg 
Snyder county Pennsylvania, stands on two runs descending 
the north flank of Shade Mountain in Middle Creek valley 12 
miles west of Selinsgrove and the Susquehanna Canal, 28 miles 
east of Lewistown and the Juniata Canal and Pennsylvania 
Railroad. It was built in 1848, 8J feet inside across the bosh 
by 30 feet high inside, and made in thirty-six weeks of 1857 
E 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


53 


1,030 tons of cold short foundry metal sent to the eastern 
forges to be mixed for boiler blooms. Ores red (soft and hard) 
fossil from a line of Upper Silurian (Clinton Group or Ko. Y.) 
outcrops along the foot of Shade mountain, which is an anti¬ 
clinal similar to Montour’s ridge behind Danville. 

112. Heshbon Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned until 
recently by Wm. McKinney of Ke wherry Lycoming county 
Pennsylvania, stands on the Lycoming Creek five miles above 
its mouth, and opposite McKinney’s Bridge Station on the 
Williamsport and Elmira railroad, was built in 1838, is 6 feet 
across the bosh by 25 feet high and makes about 300 tons of 
iron per annum for the adjoining forge and rolling mill, out of 
brown hematite ore brought from McKinney’s banks in Kittany 
valley Centre county beyond the Bald Eagle mountain to the 
south. 

113. Washington Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by C. and J. Fallon, leased by Jas. Irvin and managed by Dr. 
Wm. Irwin, stands in Kittany Yalley, on Fishing Creek waters, 
8 miles from the canal at Flemington, and 11 miles from Lock- 
haven by turnpike. It was built in 1811, is 7 \ feet across the 
bosh by 30 high, and made in 1856 about 1,200 tons of metal 
out of brown hematite pipe ore from two banks wfithin three 
miles northwest of it. 

% 

114. Howard Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
John Irwin Jr. & Co. situated east of the village, on Bald 
Eagle Creek and Canal, fourteen miles from Lockhaven inter¬ 
section, ten miles northeast of Bellefonte, on the north side of 
Lick Run Gap through Muncy or Bald Eagle Mountain, was 
built in 1830, is 8 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and 
made in thirty-nine weeks of 1857 1,307£ tons of metal out of 
brown hematite pipe ore from banks in Nittany Ualley three to 
five miles distant southeast. 

115. Hecla Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Gregg & Irwin, and managed by J. Irwin Gregg, standing 
in Logan Gap of Kittany Mountain seven miles southeast of 
Bellefonte, and eight from the canal, was built in 1826, is 8 feet 
across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in thirty-five weeks of 
1856 1,030 tons of forge metal out of brown hematite pipe ore 

E 


54 TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

from banks scattered over tbe central ridge of Nittany Yalley 
the top of which is one and a half miles north of the furnaces. 

116. Eagle Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by C. and J. Curtin, Milesburg, Centre county 
Pennsylvania, and standing on the Bald Eagle Canal one mile 
northwest of the rolling-mill, and three miles northeast of Miles¬ 
burg, was built in 1848, 8 feet across the bosh by 30 feet high, 
and made in forty-one weeks of 1856 1,078 tons of forge metal 
out of brown hematite pipe ore obtained from the central “ bar¬ 
rens ” of Nittany Yalley, three miles southeast of Bellefonte. 

117. Logan Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Yalentine & Thomas, leased by Yalentine, Thomas & Qo. and 
managed by B. B. Yalentine, Junior, situated on Logan Branch 
of Spring Creek in Nittany Yalley two miles southeast of Belle¬ 
fonte and thirty from Lockhaven, was built in 1800, is 7J feet 
across the bosh by 30 high, and made in forty-three weeks of 
1856 1,715 tons of forge metal out of brown hematite ore from 
nests in the (Trenton) limestone of Nittany Yalley two and a 
half miles east. 

118. Rock Cold-Blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Wm. F. Reynolds of 
Bellefonte, Centre county Pennsylvania, situated on Spring Creek, six miles south¬ 
east of Bellefonte, was built in 1816 and rebuilt about 1845, 6J feet across the bosh 
by 22 feet high, and made, previous to its abandonment about the middle of 1855, 
at the rate of 700 tons of metal per annum out of brown hematite pipe ore from 
banks eight miles on the road to, and eleven and a half miles from, Pinegrove, ten 
miles east in Penn’s Valley, nine miles north in Bald Eagle Valley, and others less 
than a mile distant in Spring Creek Valley. It is in ruins. 

119. Centre Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Thompson, McCoy & Co. and managed by Moses Thompson, 
standing nine miles southwest of Bellefonte on Centre Furnace 
spring Centre county Pennsylvania on the Bellefonte and 
Spruce Creek road, was built in 1790, is 8 feet across the bosh 
by 33 feet high, and made in twenty-four weeks of 1856 684 
tons of metal out of brown hematite ore three miles northwest 
and seven miles east, mixed with pipe ore from a bank one mile 
distant to the north. 

^ 120. Juliana Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
John Adams, leased by James H. Linn & Co. and managed 
by K. H. McCoy, standing in Bald Eagle valley Centre county 
Pennsylvania, on Bald Eagle creek and plank road, ten miles 

E 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


55 


southwest from Milesburg and twenty from Tyrone, was built in 
1835, is 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and made in twenty- 
nine weeks of 1856 925 tons of cold-short metal out of brown 
hematite ore, from Lambenn bank three miles due south on 
Buffalo Bun, and red-short from Biver Hill bank four and a 
half miles south in the barrens of Nittany Yalley. 

121. Martha Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Irwin & Thompson, and managed by John J. Thomp¬ 
son, is situated like Juliana furnace last described but sixteen 
miles from Tyrone, fifteen from Bellefonte, and fifteen southwest 
of Milesburg. It was built in 1832, is 8 feet across the bosh by 
30 high, and made in twenty-three weeks of 1856 507 tons of 
forge metal out of “ carbonite ” ore from mines four to five miles 
southeast of furnace. 

121.5. Hannah Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by William 
Adams, Hannah Furnace P.O. Centre county Pennsylvania, and situated ten miles 
northeast of Tyrone Station towards Bellefonte and three miles south of Port 
Matilda, was built in 1828, received steam power in 1845, stopped in 1851, and 
stands in ruins. 

122. Monroe Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Gen. J. Irwin, and leased and managed by G. W. Johnson, 
Monroe Furnace P.O. Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, stand¬ 
ing on Shaver’s Creek at the foot of Tussey Mountain, four 
miles (over the mountains) southeast from Pine Grove, and 
eighteen miles northeast from Spruce Creek station on the 
Pennsylvania railroad, was built in 1846, 8£ feet across the 
bosh by 33 feet high, and made in eighteen weeks of 1857 416 
tons of chiefly forge iron out of (half) fossil ore within two miles 
southeast and southwest, and (half) rock ore from Boss’ and 
Weaver’s banks five miles distant to the north. 

123. Huntingdon Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by G. and J. H. Shoenberger, and managed by Hays Hamilton, 
standing on Warrior Mark Bun, four miles north of Spruce 
Creek station on the Pennsylvania railroad, was built in 1796, 
is 8 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in the year 
1857 2,106 tons of metal out of brown hematite ore from sundry 
ore banks between one and four miles to the north of it. 

124. Pennsyvlania Steam and Water Cold-blast Char¬ 
coal Furnace, Bockspring P.O. Huntington county Pennsyl- 

E 


56 TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

vania, owned by Lyon, Short & Co. of Pittsburg, and situated on 
Spruce creek ten miles northeast from Spruce creek station on 
the Pennsylvania railroad, was built in 1813, and got steam- 
machinery in 1856. It is 8£ feet across the bosh and 32 feet 
high and made in forty weeks of 1855 1,814 tons of forge metal 
out of brown hematite ores from its banks a mile northeast. 

125. Erookland Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by the Juniata Iron Company, and managed 
by Daniel Holman, McVeytown Mifflin county Pennsylvania, 
standing half a mile northwest of McVeytown Station on the 
Pennsylvania railroad, was built in 1838 and changed in June 
of 1857 to cold-blast, 8 feet across the bosh by about 28 feet 
high. It made in about thirteen weeks of 1856 about 520 tons 
of metal out of brown hematite ore from Greenwood eight miles 
northwest, McVeytown twelve miles south by canal and Walter 
half a mile distant to the south-soutliwest. 

126. Matilda Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by J. ILaldeman and situated less than two miles from 
Mount Union Station on the Pennsylvania railroad in Mifflin 
county. It is 8 by 33 feet stack, was built in 1838 and stopped 
in 1855, making that last half year about 700 tons. 

127. Greenwood Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by J. A. Wright, is situated on the head waters of Standing 
Stone creek, on the road to Petersburg, fourteen miles north¬ 
west from Lewistown on the Pennsylvania railroad in Hunting¬ 
don county Pennsylvania. It was built in 1833 ; is 7i feet across 
the bosh by 33 high, and made in 1856 1,284 tons of forge me¬ 
tal out of brown hematite pipe-ore from banks near Belleville in 
Kishicoquilis Valley mixed with red fossil ore obtained near the 
furnace in Stone Valley. 

127.5. Rebecca Furnace, owned by Conkle’s heirs, stands with its forge on 
Stone Creek three miles east of Saulsburg, three miles south of McAlvoy’s Fort and 
twelve miles from Huntingdon, Huntingdon county Pennsylvania. It was abandoned 
about 1852 ; part of the bridge-house remains. 

128. Mill Creek Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owrned by James Irwin, Joseph Green, J. McCahan, 
and managed by John C. Watson, Huntingdon county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, situated on the waters of Mill Creek, five miles southeast 
of Huntingdon, an eighth of a mile east of the Pennsylvania Kail- 
13 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


57 


road and Canal and on tlie road from the Juniata River to 
Brown’s Mills in Kisliicoquilis Talley, was built in 1838, 8 feet 
across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in forty-six weeks of 
1857 1,101 tons of forge metal out of four-fifths brown hematite 
ore from banks three miles north of Spruce Creek Station and 

seventeen miles by railroad from the furnace. 

• 

129. Edward Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the 
heirs of E. Bell, leased by Hugh McNeal, and managed by Jas. 
E. Foote Huntingdon county Pennsylvania, is situated one mile 
to the southeast of Yineyard Mills, (half mile southeast of the 
canal) on a run three-quarters of a mile below the mouth of 
Aughwick Creek, and on the road to Black Log valley, four 
miles southeast of Newton Hamilton Station on the Pennsyl¬ 
vania Railroad. It was built in 1839, is 8J feet across the bosh 
by 32 feet high, and made in twenty-three weeks in 1856 713 
tons of mostly foundry metal out of brown hematite ore from 
two miles west-northwest, on Owen’s ridge, mixed with “ dark 
metallic hematite,” (cold-short) from a half mile southeast, and 
red fossil ore from a mine a hundred rods distant in the same 
direction. 

129.5. Marion Furnace in Kisliicoquilis Valley west of Lewistown was aban¬ 
doned to ruin in 1841. 

129.6. Jackson Furnace on Standing Stone creek seventeen miles above Hun¬ 
tingdon and one mile east of McAlevy’s Fort was abandoned to ruin in 1852. 

130. Rockhill Charcoal Furnace, owned by Robert Ben¬ 
son Wegton, Orbisonia P.O. Black Log, Huntingdon county 
Pennsylvania, and standing three-quarters of a mile southeast of 
Orbisonia, was built in 1830, is 8 feet across the bosh by 30 feet 
high, and has been running regularly for the last thirteen years 
making an average of 800 tons of metal per^annum. 

130.5. "Winchester Furnace situated also in Black Log Gap two hundred yards 
northwest of Rockhill Furnace last described was abandoned to ruin in 1850. 

130.6. Chester Furnace three miles from Orbisonia on the road to Mount 
Union is completely in ruins. 

131. Malinda Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
J. & A. Slieffier, and managed by Tlios. E. Orbison, Orbisonia 
P.O. Huntington county Pennsylvania, is situated on Aughwick 
Creek in Cromwell township fifteen miles southwest of Mount 
Union Station Pennsylvania Railroad, and near the State road 

E 


58 TABLE E.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

from Orbisonia to Three Springs. It was built in 1846, 6J feet 
across the bosh by 30 high, was run only to supply the forge 
and has been out of blast since 1854 when a small blast of 100 
tons of forge metal was made out of brown hematite ores from 
banks four miles north and near Jack’s Mountain, four miles 
northeast near Orbisonia and five miles south. 

132. Bald Eagle Steam and Water Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Lyon, Shob & Co. of Pittsburg, and situa¬ 
ted near the plank road five miles from Tyrone city station on 
the Pennsylvania railroad in Blair county, towards Bellefonte, 
was built in 1824 and furnished with steam-engine blast in 1857. 
It is 9 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high and made in thirty- 
six weeks of 1856 1,434 tons of forge metal out of brown hema¬ 
tite ores from the valley to the southeast three miles across the 
Bald Eagle Mountain. 

133. JEtna Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Isett, 
Keller & Co. situated in Blair county on the Pennsylvania 
Canal, twenty miles above Huntingdon and twenty-five below 
Hollidaysburg, one mile off to the southeast of the northern 
turnpike, was built in 1805, is 8 feet across the bosh by 31 feet 
high, and made in thirty weeks of 1855 1,021 tons of mostly 
forge metal out of brown hematite ore from banks two to four 
miles west, mixed with red fossil ore obtained from mines from 
five to seven miles distant. 

134. Elizabeth Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned and managed by Martin Bell, Sabbath Best P.O. Blair 
county Pennsylvania, situated on Beaver Dam Bun in Logan’s 
Valley one hundred rods east of its confluence with the Juniata, 
on a road five miles northeast of Altoona and two hundred rods 
east of the Pennsylvania Bailroad, was built in 1832, is 9 feet across 
the bosh by 32 feet'‘high, and made in twenty-six weeks of 1857 
962 tons of foundry, car-wheel and forge metal out of brown 
hematite ore from a bank in a cove of Trenton limestone distant 
one mile south. This is said to be the first furnace that used 
the gas to create the steam in 1836. 

135. Blair Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, owned by 
H. H. Burroughs, and managed by A. B. Stewart, stands on the 
Pennsylvania Bailroad, two and a half miles northeast of 
Altoona Blair county Pennsylvania, was built in 1846, 8^ feet 

E 


COKE FURNACES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


59 


across tlie bosli by 35 feet high, and made in forty weeks of 
1856 1,134^ tons of metal mostly out of red fossil ore from the 
Frankstown mines eight miles southeast of it at the Brush 
Mountain Nose. 

136. Alleghany Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by Elias Baker and situated one and a half miles 
from Altoona, Blair county Pennsylvania, on the plank road to 
Hollidaysburg, opposite Mill Bun Gap, was built in 1811, is 9 
feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in thirty-nine 
weeks of 1857 1,598 \ tons of metal out of brown hematite ore 
from the deep bank four miles to the northeast, a half mile off 
the Pennsylvania Bailroad to the southeast, and on the southeast 
side of the Upper Silurian Limestone ridge facing the Brush 
(Bald Eagle) Mountain ; mixed with soft fossil ore. 

137. Bennington (old Henrietta) Steam Hot-blast Coke 
Furnace, owned by the Blair county Bon and Coal Company, 
leased by Bobt. M. Lemon, December 10,1856 and managed by 
L. Lowry Moore, stands two miles east of the tunnel beneath the 
Pennsylvania Bailroad as it ascends with a grade of ninety-two 
feet to the mile through Sugar Bun Gap to the summit of the 
Alleghany Mountains and seven miles west from Hollidaysburg; 
was built about 1849 and restored in 1853, 9f feet across the 
bosh by 39£ high, and has lately used coke fuel with success, 
making 56 tons a week out of Frankstown red fossil ore mixed 
with bog ore found near the furnace. The lowest coal beds 
crop out behind the furnace. 

138. Gay sport Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, owned 
by Watson, White & Co. and managed by D. Watson, standing 
opposite Hollidaysburg Blair county on the Pennsylvania Canal, 
was built in 1856, 13 feet across the bosh by 45 feet high, and 
made in forty-eight weeks of 1857 3,916f tons of foundry metal 
out of red fossil ore from mines near Frankstown. 

139. Hollidaysburg (Chimney Bock) Steam Hot-blast 
Coke Furnace, owned by Gardner, Osterloh & Co. managed 
by A. M. Lloyd, and standing near the depot in Hollidaysburg 
Blair county Pennsylvania, was built in 1856, 13 feet across the 
bosh by 4S feet high, and made from the commencement of the 
first blast (Nov. 1856) to the end of the year, six weeks, 350 

E 


60 


TABLE E.—COKE FUKNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


tons of foundry metal out of red fossil ore from mines three 
miles northeast in Frankstown township. 

140. Frankstown Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, owned 
by Crawford and Higgens, and situated one and a half miles 
northeast of Frankstown, Blair county Pennsylvania, was built 
in 1836 and rebuilt in 1854, 10 feet across the bosh by 36 feet 
high, and made in forty-four weeks of 1856 about 2,300 tons of 
metal out of red fossil ore alone. 

141. Gap (Martha) Steam Charcoal Furnace, owned 

by Slioenberger’s heirs leased by Musselman and Barnitz, E. 
Freedom P.O. Blair county Pennsylvania, managed by Ed. S. 
Hughes, and standing in McKee’s Gap, six miles southwest of 
Hollidaysburg, six miles west of Martinsburg on Cove Creek 
or Spang’s Springs, three and a half miles by turnpike from 
Hewny Sidling on the Portage Railroad, was built in 1846, is 9-J 
feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, used anthracite * for its last 
blast in 1854, when it made perhaps 1,000 tons of metal out of 
red fossil ore from its own mines close by, mixed with some 
brown hematite. 

0 

142. Juniata Anthracite Furnace, situated in Williams¬ 
burg, and owned by Heff, Dean & Company, is 8 feet across 
the bosh and was built and began to make iron Christmas 1857, 
with anthracite coal,* at the rate of 60 tons a week, out of 
Frankstown fossil ore of Formation Y. 

142.5. Canoe Furnace on the Juniata Canal, one mile above Franklin Forge; 
owned by Isett, Keller & Co. has not been in use for ten years and is going to ruin; 
the stack stands but the machinery is removed; built about twenty years ago. 

143. Springfield Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 

by D. Good & Co. managed by A. McAllister, and situated 
on Piney Creek in Morrison’s Cove Blair county Pennsylvania, 
five miles south of Williamsburg, was built in 1815, is 8J feet 
across the bosh by 30 feet high, and made in forty-six weeks of 
1856 1,765 tons of metal out of brown hematite from banks two 
miles distant to the southeast. * 

144. Rebecca Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Ed. FI. Lytle, managed by James Hemphill and 
P. Gallagher, and situated on Clover Creek, in Morrison’s Cove 


t 


E 


* Not mentioned in Table A. 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


61 


Blair county Pennsylvania, on the Williamsburg and Stoners- 
town road and twelve miles southeast of Hollidaysburg, was 
built in 1819, is 9 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made 
in twenty weeks of 1856 609 tons of forge metal out of brown 
hematite ores. 

145. Bloomfield Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by J. W. Duncan and wife, managed by James Madard, and 
standing on the Hollidaysburg and Bedford road thirteen miles 
south of the former, at head waters of Quarrel Run in Morri¬ 
son’s cove Blair county Pennsylvania, was built in 1846, 9J feet 
across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in thirty-four weeks 
of 1856 1,100 tons of forge metal out of brown hematite ore from 
a bank three-quarters of a mile to the eastward of the stack. 

146. Sarah Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the 
heirs of Shoenberger, leased by D. C. McCormick, managed by 
M. Simpson, Claysburg P.O. Blair county Pennsylvania, and 
situated on Juniata Creek five miles west from Bloomfield Fur¬ 
nace last described in Morrison’s Cove, thirteen miles from Holli¬ 
daysburg on the road to and twenty miles distant from Bedford, 
was built in 1831, and rebuilt in 1847, 8 feet across the bosh by 
33 feet high, and made in forty-one weeks of 1856 1,473 tons of 
metal out of brown hematite ores from two banks four miles to 
the east of it, mixed with some fossil ore. 

147. Lemnos Steam Charcoal Furnace, owned by John 
King & Co. and managed by Jno. B. Castner, stands on Yel¬ 
low Creek two miles above its confluence with the Raystown 
Branch of Juniata," two miles west of Hopewell Bedford county 
Pennsylvania, on the plank road from Hopewell to Bloody 
Run; was built in 1841, is 8J feet across the bosh by 30 feet 
high, and made in thirty-five weeks of 1855 736 tons of metal 
out of hematite ore from a bank two and a half miles north in 
Woodcock Yalley, between Warrior Ridge and Coot Hill a spur 
of Tussey Mountain, mixed with red fossil ore from mines within 
two miles towards the west and eight miles towards the north 
on both sides of Coot Hill. 

147.5. Old Hopewell Furnace, below the town of Ilopewell on the Juniata, is 
abandoned. The new Huntingdon and Broad-Top railroad passed through its coal 
house. 

148. Rough and Ready Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

E . ^ 



62 


TABLE E.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NEW JERSEY, ETC. 


owned by S. T. Watson & Co. Coffee Run P.O. Huntingdon 
county Pennsylvania, situated on Coffee Run twenty miles south 
of Huntingdon, and two miles east of the Huntingdon and Broad- 
Top Railroad, was built in 1849, is 9 feet across the bosh by 32 
feet high, and formerly had a hot-blast. It made 20 tons a 
week until 1856 since when it has stood idle. 

148.5. Paradise Furnace in Trough Valley five miles east of Rough and Ready 
Furnace has been out of blast since 1850. 

149. Melville Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
R. D. Wood, and leased by R. D. Wood & Co. is situated 
on Maurice river in Cumberland county Hew Jersey, in the 
town of Millville, and ten miles east of Bridgeton; 'was built 
about 1815 and rebuilt in 1853, 9 feet across the bosh by 32 feet 
high; was regularly in blast until the fall of 1850 and has done 
little since 1854, when in twenty-one weeks 550 tons of foundry 
metal were made, out of bog ore found in the Tertiary deposits 
of the Atlantic seaboard, mixed with others from the State of 
Delaware near Milton and elsewhere'. 

149.1. Bergen Furnace in Monmouth county New Jersey is out of blast. 

149.2. Hanover Furnace in Burlington county owned by Benjamin Jones has 
been idle five or six years. 

149.3. Atsion Furnace in the same county owned by Mark T. Richards & Co. 
is out of blast. 

149.4. Batsto Furnace below Atsion, on Little Egg Harbor River, has been 
idle four or five years. 

149.5. Weymouth Furnace has been out five years. 

149.6. Tuckahoe Furnace, Cape May county, has been idle a long time. 

149.7. Cumberland Furnace, Cumberland county, owned by the heirs of 
Edward Smith, has been out of blast for fifteen years. 

All these were Charcoal furnaces making mostly foundry metal out of the superfi¬ 
cial deposits of bog ore and using the timber of the Jersey Pines. The Anthracite 
foundry iron manufacture has destroyed this branch of the Charcoal manufacture, 
but many of the large foundries attached to these furnaces continue to be used and 
have been increased in size. 

149.8. Millsborough Charcoal Furnace, owned by Gardner H. Wright of 
Millsborough Sussex county Delaware is the only one in the State and has not made 
iron for ten years. A cupola furnace is in activity beside it. 

149.9. Naseongo Charcoal Furnace, owned by Geo. S. Richardson of Snow- 
hill and Geo. H. Marten of Philadelphia, and situated at the head of Naseono-o 
creek five miles northwest of Snowhill, fifty miles south of Seaford, one mile above 
the Newton-Snowhill crossing, was built in 1830, a pretty large furnace, stopped in 
1849 and now dilapidated. 

E 



CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN VIRGINIA. 


63 


150. Georgetown Steam Hot-blast Furnaces (two stacks, one without 
lining), owned by Wm. A. Bradley of Washington, D. C., stands on the east bank 
of the Potomac at the west end of Georgetown, was built about 1849, is about 8 feet 
across the bosh by 28 feet high, and was worked unsuccessfully until 1854 when it 
was abandoned and now is much dilapidated. 

151. Blue Ridge Steam (?) Hot-Blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Wilkins 

Glenn of Baltimore, and managed by Samuel B. Preston of Knoxville, Frederick 
county Maryland, stands on the north side of the Potomac River, a quarter of a 
mile beloAv Knoxville station and four miles below Harper’s Ferry; was built in 1849 
and in 1855 abandoned; it is 12 J feet across the bosh by 40 high and made grey 
metal out of ores from Point of Rocks Furnace and from a bank up the Shenan¬ 
doah. The shape is peculiar: Tunnel head 2 8 2 102 2 2 V 4 « 

across hearth floor. It has 2 blast tubes, 4J x 5 st. Engine 60 horse. Had 3 
tuyeres, now 6 ; formerly 4 in. noz., now 3 ; old ones 5^. {Belongs to Table E.) 

152. Potomac Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, owned 
by J. W. Geary, and managed by Michael Mullen, Point of 
Rocks P.O. Loudon county, Yirginia, stands on the Virginia 
bank of the river three-quarters of a mile below Point of Rocks, 
was built in 1839, rebuilt in 1846 and used charcoal until 1848, 
is 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, has made no iron since 
1854 but has received a larger engine and will average 60 tons 
per week, with brown hematite ores from a bank reached 
by a branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which passes 
the furnace, three-quarters of a mile to the southeast. 

153. Catharine Steam (?) Charcoal Furnace, owned by J. S. Wellford’s 

heirs and others, Dr. Wellford, Executor, Brandy Station, Culpepper, Spottsylvania 
county Virginia, stands where the Fredericksburg and Valley Plank Road crosses 
Nye River, nearly ten miles due west of Fredericksburg, was built about 1837 and 
abandoned in 1846, the hematite ores used were from three banks within a half- 
mile of the furnace. 

154. A New Steam (?) Charcoal Furnace, Robert Hard 
agent for the sale, Mansfield P.O. Spottsylvania county 
Virginia, is situated in Spottsylvania county about fifteen miles 
from Mansfield P.O. with 465 acres of land, timber and ore. 

155. Rough and Ready Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Stephen Dunington of Tolersville P.O. Louisa county, Virginia, stands six miles east 
of Louisa Court House and a half mile west of north from Tolersville, was built iu 
1848, 9 feet across the bosh by about 40 high, and abandoned in 1853, used hema¬ 
tite ore from a bank two miles northeast mixed with magnetic ore from mines two 
miles west and one and a half miles east. 

156. Hunter’s Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by John Hunter, 
leased by David and Samuel Anderson, and managed by Joel Yancy, is situated 
four miles northeast from Tolersville on the Central Railroad, was built in 1834, 
9 feet across the bosk by 30 high, and made in thirty-four weeks of 1854 1,050 tons 

. ' Table H 


< 


64 TABLE H.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN VIRGINIA. 

* 

k, - 

of metal from a brown hematite ore bank fifteen feet thick and well located. Fur¬ 
nace stack dilapidated. 

157. Bear Garden Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, situated a half mile south¬ 
east of New Canton, Buckingham county Virginia, was abandoned in 1840 and is 
now in ruins. 

158. Elk Creek Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Alex. Montgomery 
of Lynchburg, Campbell county Virginia, stands on Elk Creek in Nelson county 
eight hundred yards north of James River and Canal, and twenty-five miles north 
of Lynchburg, was abandoned in 1850 and is much out of repair, has a round stack 
9 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and used mixed brown hematite and magnetic 
ore from banks and mines to the north and west of furnace. 

159. Stonewall Charcoal Furnace, situated on Stonewall Creek in Appomatox 
county, two miles from James River, and about fifteen miles north of Lynchburg 
was abandoned about 1845 and is now in ruins. 

160. Lagrange Charcoal Furnace, (once William Ross Furnace) on Stonewall 
Creek, one mile above Stonewall Furnace, and sixteen north of Lynchburg, was 
abandoned about 1843 and has disappeared. 

161. Oxford Charcoal Furnace, once Old Davie Ross Furnace, stood on Beaver 
Creek, seven miles south of east from Lynchburg, was abandoned about 1837 and 
has disappeared. 

162. Saunder’s Charcoal Furnace, situated at Franklin Coxirt House, Virgi¬ 
nia, was abandoned 1800 and is now in ruins. 

163. Carron Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned bv 
Peter and Robt. J. Saunders, Franklin Court House P.O. Frank¬ 
lin county Virginia, is situated seven miles west of Franklin 
C.II. on Stony Creek, three miles southwest of Yalley Forge, 
twenty-two miles east of Floyd C.II. and thirty-two northeast 
of Patrick C.H. was built in 1857, 8 feet across the bosh by 
30 feet high and is to use hematite ore like that of Union Fur¬ 
nace, but more sulphurous, three miles south. 

164. Union Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned bv 
Samuel W. Hairston, Union Furance P.O. Patrick county Vir¬ 
ginia, is situated on Hales’ Creek, twenty miles east of north 
from Patrick C.H. twenty-five west of south from Franklin 
C.H. twenty east of Floyd C.H., about five miles from Franklin 
county line, fifty-five from Danville and about fifty from Bi^ 
Lick the nearest station on Virginia and Tennessee Railroad; 
was built about 1836, is 9 feet across the bosh by 30 high and 
made in six months of 1854 about 500 tons of mostly forge 
metal out of blue lump ore from a quarter of a mile north 
H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN VIRGINIA. 


65 


mixed with hard red lump and fine bluish, purple, black and 
red ores from the same spot. 

165. West Fork Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Robt. L. Toncray, West Fork P.O. Floyd county Virginia, 
stands on the West Fork of Little River, twenty-five miles 
above Snowville, twenty west of Patrick C.H. and eight south¬ 
east of Jacksonville ; was built in 1853, 6 feet across the bosh 
by 28 feet high, and has made nothing since Christmas 1855 
and only about 150 tons per annum previously. 

166. Poplar Camp Charcoal Furnace, situated in Wythe county, Virginia, 
on a small stream emptying into New River, 2 miles above its mouth and 8 miles 
west from Barren Spring Furnace ; was abandoned between the years 1817 and 
1827, and nothing now remains. 

167. Shelor’s Charcoal Furnace, situated close by West York Furnace in 
Wythe county, Virginia, was abandoned long ago and a few traces alone mark its 
site. 

168. Another Furnace stood close by Shelor’s and West York Furnaces, which 
was built before either of the last. No remains. 

169. Another old Furnace, in Grayson county, on Fox or Meadow Creek, 12 miles 
north from Little River forge, and three miles southeast from Independence, was 
abandoned in 1845, and nothing of it remains. 

170. Shannondale Steam and Water Charcoal Furnace* 

owned by C. Brooke of Wagontown, Chester county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, and leased by John West, is situated in Jefferson county 
Virginia, six miles east of Charlestown ; was built in 1837, with 
a 9 foot bosh and made in 1855 perhaps 250 tons of iron out of 
ore from a mine two miles down the river, and stopped January 
1, 1857. 

171. Taylor Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by James Been, Mountain Falls P.O. and formerly leased 
by S. A. Pancoast, Pawpaw P.O. Frederick county, Virginia, 
stands ten miles west of Winchester, was built about 1815, is 
8 feet wide across the bosh by about 32 feet high, and „made 
in 1855 perhaps 500 tons of metal out of brown hematite ore. 

172. Zane’s Charcoal Furnace, situated on Cedar Creek, Frederick county 
Virginia, was “ built before any iron works in this region,” and is now in ruius 
having been abandoned about the year 1828. Has a forge attached also in ruins. 

173. Bloomery Water and Steam Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by C. II. Pancoast and J. Magee, 403 Walnut 
street Philadelphia, and formerly leased by S. A. Pancoast, is 

5 H 



66 TABLE H.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE VIRGINIA, 

situated in Hampshire county Virginia, was built abou + 1844, is 
7 feet across the bosli by about 30 high, and made in tliirty-five 
weeks of each of the last three years about 800 tons of metal. 

174. Vulcan Steam Hot blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by C. H. Pancoast, leased by the Hew Creek Coal Company, 
T. S. Richards, agent, Cumberland P.O. Maryland, is situated 
in Hampshire county Virginia nine miles southeast of Cumber¬ 
land Maryland ; was built about 1847, 9 feet across the bosh by 
33 high, and was out of blast about seven years. It formerly 
made forty tons a week out of red fossil ore (Formation V.) 
but is blown in again on coke and coal measure carbonate, fossil 

and brown hematite ores mixed. 

« 

175. McCarty Charcoal Furnace which stands by the Paddington Rail¬ 
road station in Hampshire county Virginia is still standing, but has made no iron 
for 30 years, and everything is removed. 

176. Capon Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by J. J. Keller of Wardensville P.O. Virginia, is 
situated three miles from Wardensville, on the Cacapon River 
at the crossing of the Winchester and Moorefield turnpike, and 
thirty-six miles west of the former; was built in 1822, is 9 feet 
across the bosh by 30 high, and made an average of about 300 
tons of metal in about sixteen weeks of each of the three years 
past, out of brown hematite ore from banks one and a half 
mile west. 

177. Bryan’s Charcoal Furnace, on Hezekiah Cleggit’s farm in Hardy county, 
Virginia, was abandoned about 1840 and is in ruins. 

178. Trout Run Charcoal Furnace, is situated in Trout Run Valley, in the 
Devil’s Hole, Hardy county, Virginia, seven miles southeast of Wardensville and 
was formerly called Crackwhip Furnace; it is now in ruins. 

179. Fort Steam and Water Hot-biast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, once Fort’s Mouth Furnace, afterwards Elizabeth Fur¬ 
nace, owned and managed by Gilease and Brown, Front Royal, 
Strasburg P*0. Warren county Virginia, stands on Passage 
Creek, two and a half miles above Fort’s Mouth Forge, 25 miles 
below Luray, 15 miles below Caroline Furnace, and within 4^ 
miles south of the Manassali Gap and eight and a half miles 
southeast of Strasburg. It was built in 1836, 9 feet across the 
bosh by 33 feet high, and makes about 250 tons a year out of 
brown hematite ore from a quarter of a mile west of the furnace. 
H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE VIRGINIA. 


67 


180. Paddy Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by Mr. Wilson of New York city, situated in and 
on the borders of Shenandoah county Virginia, seven miles west 
of Strasburg, was built in 1833, 8 feet across the bosh by 33 feet 
high, and produced 25 to 30 tons a week out of cold short 
brown hematite ore from banks one mile west and southwest, 
mixed with bog ore from three-quarters of a mile due west,— 
previous to the summer of 1851. ' 

181. Columbia Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Wissler and (Samuel) Myers, Columbia Furnace P.O. Shen¬ 
andoah county, Virginia, situated eight and a half miles south¬ 
west of Woodstock, on Stony Creek, 6 miles west of Edinburg, 
4 miles above (west of) Union Forge, was built in 1810, rebuilt 
in 1823, and for 15 years until April 1854, ran regularly 11^ 
months in each year, making 700-800 tons a year. It is 8-J feet 
across the bosh by 30 high and made in thirty-six weeks of 1855 
850 tons of forge and foundry metal out of brown hematite ore 
from Five Mile bank five miles northwest, Three Mile bank 
three miles southwest, Drummond’s bank two miles west, and 
also formerly from Black Oak bank two miles west. 

182. Van Buren Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

No. 1, owned by Miller and Mayhew of Baltimore, and last 
managed by Mr. James, stands on Cedar Creek seven miles 
west of Woodstock in Shenandoah county Virginia; was built 
in 1837 and reduced in width of bosh in 1854 to 8J feet by 32 
feet high, and made in 1855 about 500 tons of cold short metal 
out of brown hematite ore from banks within two thousand 
yards around,—and nothing since. 

183. Van Buren Oold-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 2, stands forty rods to the 
east of No. 1, and is owned by James W. Farrer, Van Buren P.O. Shenandoah 
county Virginia. Built by Lorenzo Seibert in 1850 only 3 feet across the bosh for 
making malleable iron direct from the ore, and about 22 feet high, it ran ten days, 
chilled up and stands as it was left. 

184. Caroline Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Marston, Bush & Co. of Wilmington, Delaware, and 
managed by J. Marston, Edinburg, Shenandoah county Virginia, 
stands eight miles southeast of Edinburg and twelve of Wood- 
stock ; was built in 1835, is 9 feet across the bosh by 30 high, 
and made in twenty-two and a half weeks in 1856 553 tons of 

H 


68 TABLE H.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE VIRGINIA. 

• * 
forge and foundry metal out of “ yellow and black oxide ” ores 
from the mountain one and a quarter miles distant on tlie 
Luray road, mixed with one quarter part red fossil ore from a 
bank two and a quarter miles northwest on the side of the 
Alleghany Mountain. 

185. Liberty Gold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Walter Newman, and managed by Benjamin P. Newman, 
Liberty Furnace P.O. Shenandoah county Virginia, stands on 
a branch of Stony Creek, twelve miles west of Woodstock, 
eleven north of Edinburg and five west of Columbia Furnace; 
was built in 1821, is 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and 
made in twenty weeks of 1855 387 tons of foundry metal out 
of hematite ore from banks one mile north. 

186. Isabella Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Nicholas W. Yager 
of Luray, Page county Virginia, one mile north of Luray, on Hawksbill Creek a 
half mile above Speedwell Forge No. 1, was built about 1760, and abandoned in 
1841, now in ruins. 

187. Catharine Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by John McKiernan, Alma P.O. Page county 
Virginia, situated three miles west of Newport, fourteen miles 
from Luray, fifteen by pike from New Market, and eighteen by 
bridle path and twenty-five by road from Harrisburg, was built 
in 1846, 8 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in 
twenty-two weeks of 1856 526 tons of metal out of brown hema¬ 
tite ore from banks three-quarters of a mile west of north from 
the furnace. 

188. Shenandoah Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 1 

leased and formerly owned by D. and H. Forrer, and managed 
by H. Pope, Shenandoah Iron Works, Page county Virginia, 
stands nine miles southwest of Newport, twenty south of Luray 
and twenty-three south of Harrisburg; was built in 1836, 9 feet 
across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in twenty-two weeks 
of 1856 632J tons of forge metal out of brown hematite ore 
from banks in Eockingham county, within a quarter of a mile 
of the furnace. 

« 

189. Shenandoah Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace 

No. 2, leased and owned like No. 1, stands on Naked Creek, 
five miles above Furnace No. 1 and twenty miles above Port 

H 


CHARCOAL FUENACES IN MIDDLE VIRGINIA. 


69 


Republic, was built in 1857, about 9 feet across the bosh by 36 
feet high, to make 50 tons a week. 

190. Margaret Jane Steam and Water Hot-blast 
Charcoal Furnace, owned and managed by John Miller, Port 
Republic P.O. Rockingham county Virginia, is situated in 
Brown’s Gap, three miles east of Mount Vernon Forge and 
three miles northeast of Port Republic; was built in 1849, 8 
feet across the bosh by 31 feet high, and made in twenty-six 
weeks of each of the three years before 1857 about 750 tons 
of forge metal out of brown hematite pipe ore from a bank 
near the furnace, mixed with ores from three and five miles 
north at the foot of the mountain. 

191. Oakland Charcoal Furnace, situated a half mile east of Brock’s Gap in 
Rockingham county Virginia was built by Mr. Pennebacker, living near New Mar¬ 
ket, about 1837 and within the same year abandoned and is now in ruins. 

192. An old Furnace in Rockingham county Virginia, on Smith’s Creek, built, 
some say 70 years ago, was abandoned 40 or more years ago. 

193. Elizabeth (?) Furnace. 

194. Mossy Creek Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Daniel Forrer, 
Mossy Creek P.O. Augusta county Virginia, is situated eleven miles from Harris-' 
burg, fourteen miles northwest of Staunton, and two and a half miles from 
Manassah Gap Railroad ; was built about 1760, is about 8J feet across the bosh by 
28£ high ; was burnt down in 1841 and is now in a ruined condition; the ores lie 
in all directions around it. 

195. Mount Torry Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by Lorenzo Shaw, Waynesborough P. O. Augusta 
county Virginia, stands on Back Creek, fifteen miles east of 
Greensville, about eighteen northeast of Cotopaxi Furnace, and 
sixteen west of south from Waynesborough; was built in 1800, 
and rebuilt in 1853; is 11 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high, 
and made in the half year of 1854 about 700 tons of cold-short 
metal out of brown hematite ore from a bank two miles north¬ 
west, but has made‘nothing since the spring of 1855. 

196. Canada Charcoal Furnace, a very small stack situated in Augusta county 
Virginia, 3 miles west-northwest of Mount Torry Furnace, built 40 years ago, blew 
but a few days and is a heap of ruins. 

197. Estelline Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by Lorenzo Shaw, Waynesborough P.O. Augusta 
county Virginia, situated twenty-one miles west of Staunton, on 

the head waters of Little CaJ f Pasture, three miles west of south 

H 


70 TABLE H.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE VIRGINIA. 

from Pond Gap Station (18 m. west of Staunton), one and a half 
south of the Virginia Central Railroad and three miles southeast 
of Craigsville (22 west of the Station), was built about 1838, 6 
feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in 1855 and ’56, 
each year about thirty weeks, 20 tons of cold short metal per 
week out of brown hematite ore from banks two miles southeast. 

198. Cotopaxi Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and managed by John and 
Isaac Newton, Greenville P.O. Augusta county Virginia, situated on South River 
four miles above Vesuvius Furnace, and sixteen miles southwest of Staunton, was 
built about 1836, is about 8 feet across the bosh by about 32 feet high, and made 
in about thirty-two weeks of 1854, previous to its abandonment on the 23d Decem¬ 
ber, about 600 tons of metal out of brown hematite ores from Morris bank one mile 
south, and Bear’s bank three miles northeast. It is now in ruins. 

199. Vesuvius Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and managed by 

Bradley and Donald, Steele’s Tavern P.O. Rockbridge county Virginia, stands 
on South River, twenty miles southwest of Staunton; was built in 1828, is 8 feet 
across the bosh by 40 feet high and was abandoned on the fifteenth of December 
1854, making in twenty-six weeks of that year about 600 tons of metal out of 
“ black rock ” hematite ores from several banks within three miles. The furnace 
is now dilapidated. 

200. Buena Vista Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Sam. F. Jordan, and managed by Jno. J. Jor¬ 
dan, Buena Vista P.O. Rockbridge county Virginia, standing 
on South River, one and a half miles from North River, 8 miles 
north of Buffalo Forge, 15 miles below (southwest) Vesuvius 
Furnace, and six miles east of Lexington, was built in 1847, 9 
feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in an average of 
each of the years 1854 ’55 and ’56 about 900 tons of metal out 
of brown hematite ore from Cash’s and Hayes’ Old bank, 
within three miles southeast. 

201. Glenwood Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Francis T. Anderson, and managed by E. Peck, Balcony Falls 
P.O. Rockbridge county Virginia, stands in Arnold’s Valley 
1% miles south of James River, and eighteen miles southeast of 
Lexington; was built in 1849, 9 feet across the bosh by 38 feet 
high, and made in twenty-eight weeks of 1856 940 tons of metal 
out of brown hematite ore from Greenlee bank one mile off to 
the north. 

202. California Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by John W. Jordan Alum Springs P.O. Rock¬ 
bridge county Virginia, standing on Bratton’s Run, fifteen miles 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE VIRGINIA. 


71 


west of north from Lexington, two miles southeast of the 
Springs, was built in 1850, 9 feet across the bosh by 36 feet 
high, and made in eighteen weeks of 1855 1,076-J- tons of cold 
short metal out of brown hematite ore from banks two and a 
half miles distant to the west of south. 

203. Mount Hope Charcoal Furnace, situated a quarter of a mile above 
California Furnace, on the same stream, was built about 1849, abandoned in 1853, 
and is not much dilapidated. 

204. Panther Gap Charcoal Furnace, situated in Rockbridge county 
Virginia, one and a half miles west of Goshen on the Virginia Central Railroad, was 
abandoned about 1837 and is now a heap of ruins. 

205. Bath Iron Works Furnace, formerly owned by Wm. Weaver of Buf¬ 
falo Forge, situated close to the Goshen station on the Virginia Central Railroad, 
was built in 1824 or ’25 and rebuilt in 1830. The forge was built in 1827 and both 
were abandoned in 1850. 

205. Moore’s Charcoal Furnace standing on the banks of Steele’s Creek in 
Rockbridge county Virginia, was abandoned thirty or forty years ago and is in 
ruins. 

207. Dolly Ann Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by B. J. Jordon & Co. and managed by W. 
H. Jordan, was called for a time Bough and Beady Furnace, 
and stands three and a half miles east of Covington, on Pound¬ 
ing Mill Bun, one and a half miles distant from the Virginia 
Central Bailroad line and from the James Biver and Kanawha 
Canal. It was built in 1848, rebuilt and enlarged in 1854, to 81- 
feet across the bosh by 36 feet high, and made in sixteen weeks 
of 1856 about 500 tons of metal out of hematite ore found at 
the furnace. 

208. Lucy Salina Charcoal Furnace, owned by E. & J. F. Jordan, situated 
in Alleghany county Virginia, on Simpson’s Creek, four and a half miles west of 
Australia Furnace, next to be described, and twenty-one miles east of Covington, 
was built in 1827, abandoned in 1852, and is dilapidated. 

209. Australia Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by E. & J. F. Jordan, Cow Pasture Bridge P.O. 
Alleghany county Virginia, situated twenty-five miles east of 
Covington, on Simpson’s Creek, twelve miles southeast of Clif¬ 
ton Forge and thirty-six miles north of Buchanan, was built in 
1854, 11 feet across the bosh by 40 high, and made in about 
thirty-three weeks of 1856 915 tons of metal out of brown 
hematite ore from banks six hundred yards northwest. 


H 


TABLE H.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE VIRGINIA. 



210. Clifton Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Wm. L. Alexander, Clifton Furnace P.O. Alleghany county 
Virginia, situated thirteen miles east of Covington, on Jackson’s 
Fiver at Clifton Forge, four miles east of Jackson’s Fiver sta¬ 
tion on the Virginia Central Failroad, was built in 1846, 9 feet 
across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in twenty-nine w T eeks 
of 1854 about 800 tons of metal, making nothing since, out of 
fifty per cent, hematite ore from banks one mile east and west. 

211. Rumsey Iron Works Charcoal Furnace, owned by the Jordans, 
stands on Dunlap’s Creek and was abandoned about 1854 and nothing now 
remains. 

y 

212. Roaring Run Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by F. B. Deane of 
Lynchburg and Samuel C. Robinson of Richmond, Virginia, situated on Roaring 
Run, a branch of Craig’s Creek, four miles southwest of Dibbrell’s Sulphur Springs, 
thirty-six miles northwest of Bonsack’s station on the Virginia and Tennessee 
Railroad and forty miles south of west from Lexington, was built about 1832, 
rebuilt in 1847, 8-J feet across the bosh by 36 (?) feet high, and made in thirty-five 
weeks of 1854 about 800 tons of metal out of brown hematite ore from a bank one 
mile distant south ; was abandoned in December 1854 and is now dilapidated. 

213. Grace Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Shanks and Patton, and managed by Thomas Cornelius, 
Grace Furnace P.O. Botetourt county Virginia, situated on 
Craig’s Creek seventeen miles southeast of Covington and IT 
miles west of Fincastle was built in 1849, 8-J feet across the bosh 
by 33 feet high, and niade in about twenty-six weeks of 1856 
about 900 tons of metal out of brown hematite ore from two 
banks within a hundred yards of the furnace, mixed with 
other neighboring ores. 

214. Rebecca Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the heirs of W. 
Wilson, D. J. Wilson, Daggert's Springs P.O. Botetourt county Virginia, is 
situated fifteen miles northwest of Buchanan, one mile east-southeast of Daggert’s 
Springs, and two miles northeast from James River, 15 miles northwest of Bucha¬ 
nan ; built 35 to 40 years ago ; was abandoned about 7 years ago, and is dila¬ 
pidated. 

215. Jane Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the heirs of Wm, 
Wilson, is situated four miles northeast of Rebecca Furnace last described, and 
sixteen miles northwest of Buchanan. It was built 25 to 30 years ago and aban¬ 
doned about 1850, and is more dilapidated than Rebecca. 

216. Retreat Charcoal Furnace, owned by Colonel William Weaver, 
situated on Purgatory Creek, in Botetourt county Virginia, nine miles north of 
Buchanan, was built about 1827, and abandoned about 1849, and is now in ruins 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MIDDLE VIRGINIA. 


73 


* 

217. Cloverdale Charcoal Furnace, No. 1, last owned by General Tay¬ 
lor, situated eighteen miles southwest of Buchanan, on the macadamized Valley 
Turnpike, 10 miles south of Fincastle, was built about 1830 and abandoned about 
1849. 

218. Cloverdale Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 2, 

owned by Anderson and Patton of Pattonsbnrg P.O. and man¬ 
aged by T. H. Burns, Blue Ridge, situated on Back Creek in 
Botetourt county, seven and a half miles southeast of Buchanan, 
live miles south of James River, eight east of Fincastle, at 
the western base of the Blue Ridge, 200 miles from Richmond, 
was built in 1841, rebuilt in 1850, and again rebuilt in 1854, 
9 feet across the bosh by 37 feet high and has averaged about 
the same yield for years making in thirty-two weeks of 1856 
1,120 tons of metal out of brown hematite ore from McFallon’s 
bank three miles south, and Campbell’s banks one mile east. 

119. iHtna Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by ¥m. 
Weaver, and managed by Charles K. Gorgas, and W. W. Rex, 
Pattonsburg, Botetourt county Yirginia, situated on Purgatory 
Creek, two and a half miles northeast of Buchanan, and four¬ 
teen miles north of east from Fincastle, was built in 1792, 
and rebuilt in 1842, 9 feet across the bosh by about 35 feet high, 
and made in twenty two weeks of 1856 700 tons of metal out 
of brown hematite ore from Retreat bank six miles by wagon 
road, ten miles by railroad, distant to the north, mixed with 
“ lump ” ore from a bank three hundred yards west of furnace. 

220. Catawba Charcoal Furnace, situated on Catawba Creek in Botetourt 
county Virginia, eleven miles west of Fincastle, was built about 1830, abandoned in 
1849 and is now dilapidated. 

221. Harvey’s Charcoal Furnace, situated in Botetourt county, was built 
about 1810, abandoned about 1825 and is now entirely gone. 

222. An Old Furnace, situated in Craig county Virginia, on Craig’s Creek, one 
and a half miles above New Castle, was built about 1830, abandoned about 1843, 
and is now entirely gone. 

223. Barren Spring Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by David Graham of Graham’s Forge, and managed by Charles 
W. Lyons, situated on the south bank of New River, in Wythe 
county Yirginia, eighteen miles southeast of Wytheville, six 
miles by road southeast from Graham’s Forge, about fifteen 
north of Hillsville, and twelve miles on a good road from Mac’s 
Meadows Depot on the Yirginia and Tennessee railroad, w r as 


74 TABLE H. - CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MEDDLE VIRGINIA. 


built in 1854, 7 feet across the bosli by 40 bigh, and made in 
twenty-six weeks of each of the years 1855 and ’6, an average of 
450 tons of metal each year, out of brown hematite ore from 
banks three-quarters of a mile southeast and three hundred 
yards southeast. 

224. Wilkinson’s Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by James Wilkinson 
of Brown Hill P.O. Wythe county Virginia, standing on Cripple Creek a quarter 
mile below Forge No. 3, and twelve miles west of south from Wytheville, was 
built about 1810 by Bell & Kincannon, and abandoned by them 30 years ago. An 
attempt was made in 1856 to blow it in, but it chilled, was abandoned, and remains 
in a dilapidated state. It used brown hematite ore from a bank four miles west. 

225. Parry Mount Charcoal Furance, No. 1, standing four hundred yards 
west of No. 2, and three miles southeast of Graham’s Forge, was built about 1800, 
abandoned in 1832 and is now a ruin. 

226. Parry Mount Charcoal Furnace, No. 2, owned by David Graham of 
Graham’s Forge P.O. situated on the road from Graham’s Forge to Barren Spring 
Furnace, in Wythe county Virginia, w r as built in 1832, supplied the forge, was 
abandoned in 1852 and is now dilapidated. 

227. Porter’s Charcoal Furnace, standing on a little stream which empties 
into Cripple Creek four miles above its mouth and four miles southwest of Wilkin¬ 
son’s Furnace, was built thirty or forty years ago, abandoned 1849 ’50, and is now in 
ruins. 

228. Paulina Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by James Brown of 
Abingdon, situated on Valley Creek, in Washington county Virginia, three miles 
southwest of Brown’s Forge one hundred yards south of the South Fork of Holsten, 
was built about thirty years ago, 9 feet across the bosh by 30 high. The old stack 
still stands and the cupola attached is still in use. 

229. White’s Charcoal Furnace, owned by Wm. & Newton White of Abing¬ 
don, situated on the north fork of Holsten River, in Washington county Virginia, 
fifteen miles southwest of Saltville, was abandoned more than twenty years ago and 
is now all gone. 

230. Rehoboth Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
F. M. Reinhardt & Co. and managed by F. M. Reinhardt, Lin- 
colnton P.O. Lincoln comity North Carolina, and standing on 
Leiper’s Creek, eight miles south of east from Lincolnton, and 
twenty-five miles northwest of Charlotte, was built in 1814, is 7 
feet across the bosh by 34 feet high, and made in eighteen weeks 
of 1856 200 tons of foundry metal out of 400 tons of magnetic 
ore from the “ iron bank ” on Leiper’s Creek. 

231. Madison Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
James F. & R. D. Johnston, and managed by J. F. Johnston, 
Lincolnton P.O. Lincoln county North Carolina, and standing 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 


75 


on Leiper’s Creek three miles above Rehoboth Furnace last de* 
scribed, and six miles east of Lincolnton, was built in 1809, and 
rebuilt in 1855, 6 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and made in 
1S49 225 tons of foundry metal out of magnetic ore from the 
“ iron bank ” one and a half miles distant. 

232. Vesuvius Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by A. F. & E. J. Brevard, Cottage Home P.O. Lincoln 
county Hortli Carolina and standing on Anderson’s Creek, four 
miles northeast from Madison Furnace last described and ten 
miles east of Lincolnton, was built in 1795, rebuilt about 1813. 
6 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and made in twenty weeks ot 
1856 250 tons of foundry metal out of black magnetic ore. 

233. Columbia Charcoal Furnace, owned by the High 
Shoals Mining and Manufacturing Company, office Ho. 4 Bowl¬ 
ing Green, Hew York, agent Thomas Darling, Hail Factory 
P.O. Gaston county Horth Carolina, and situated seven miles 
west from High Shoals, eight and a half northwest of Dallas 
Court House, is in ruin ; has not operated since January 1,1854. 
Expect it to be restored and operated again together with the 
rolling mill and forges. Ore nickeliferous magnetic near by. 

234. Tom’s Creek Charcoal Furnace, situated in Surrey county, .North Caro¬ 
lina, on Tom’s Creek, near Hill’s Forge, was destroyed by the flood of 1850 and is 
now in ruins. 

235. Buffalo Creek Charcoal Furnace, situated in Cleveland county North 
Carolina, on Buffalo Creek, and near Buffalo Forge, was in blast before the Revo¬ 
lution but is now in total ruins. 

236. Hurricane Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
the South Carolina Manufacturing Company, Simpson Bobo 
agent, Spartanburg P.O. Spartanburg district South Carolina, 
and situated on Pacolet River, seven miles north of east from 
Spartanburg, was built in 1834, 7 feet across the bosh by 40 
high, and has averaged in twenty-eight weeks of each past year 
230 tons of foundry metal out of brown hematite ore from banks 
four miles northeast. 

237. Cowpens Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
the same parties as Hurricane Furnace last described and situa¬ 
ted on Cherokee Creek, fourteen miles east of north from Spar¬ 
tanburg and three miles south of the State-line and five miles 

H 


76 TABLE n.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 

east from tlie Battle Field, was built in 1807 and rebuilt in 1834, 
7 feet across the bosb by 30 higli, and has made in thirty-five 
weeks of each year since 1853 about 450 tons of forge metal out 
of brown hematite ore from a bank near the Hurricane ore 
banks. 

238. North Twin Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by the Swedish Iron Manufacturing Company, and managed by 
A. M. Latham, Cooperville P.O. Spartanburg district South 
Carolina, and standing on Broad Biver, tAventy-six miles north¬ 
east from Spartanville and twenty-four miles west of north from 
Yorkville, was built in 1841, 9 feet across the bosh by 36 feet 
high, and made in twenty-eight weeks of 1855 476 tons of metal 
for the rolling mill out of a mixture of black magnetic and 
brown hematite ores. 

239. South Twin Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by the same parties, standing alongside of and 
joined to North Twin, was built in 1837, to run alternately with 
North Twin and made in forty-eight weeks of 1856 816 tons of 
metal for the rolling mill out of the same brown hematite and 
magnetic ores mixed. 

240. Cherokee Charcoal Furnace, owned by the Cherokee Iron Manufacturing 
Company, and situated at the Cherokee Iron, Works, two and a half miles below the 
Swedish Iron Works, was built in 1837, ran one year, and has ever since remained 
out of repair. 

241. Ellen Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the Swedish Iron Manu¬ 
facturing Company and standing two miles up People’s Creek above its mouth, 
was built in 1837, 9 feet across the bosh by 28 feet high and went out of blast 
about 1850, and has been out of repair since 1852. 

242. Susan Cold-Blast Charcoal Furnace, is situated on People’s Creek, in 
Union District, one mile from Ellen Furnace, last described, having the same age 
and history as it, 9 feet across the bosh by 34 feet high. 

243. King’s Creek Charcoal Furnace, owned by the King’s Mountain Iron 
Company, M. M. Montgomery, agent, Cherokee Works, and situated on King’s 
Creek in York District, four miles from its junction with Broad River, and seven 
miles east of the Rolling Mill, is likewise abandoned. 

244. Sequee Charcoal Furnace, situated on Sequee Creek 3 miles South of 
Clarkesville, Habersham county Georgia, was built in 1832 or earlier, and aban¬ 
doned about 1837, and is now in ruins. 

245. Allatoona Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
T. F. Moore and D. K. Thomas of Allatoona P.O. Cass county 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN GEORGIA. 


77 


Georgia, and standing on Allatoona Creek, thirteen miles south¬ 
east of Cassville three miles from the Mississippi and Atlantic 
railroad and six miles east-sontheast of Cartersville, was built in 
1844, 7 feet across the bosh by 30 feet high, and made in 
twenty-two weeks of 1856 3754 tons of foundry metal out of 
brown hematite and black oxide ores from several banks within 
two miles around. Previous to 1855 it had no cold-blast. 

246. Etowah Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
the Etowah Manufacturing and Mining Company, M. A. 
Cooper, President, managed by T. M. Stocks, and situated on 
Stamp Creek in Cass county Georgia, two miles northeast of 
Etowah Polling Mill and six miles northeast of Allatoona Rail¬ 
road Station, was built in 1844, 8 feet across the bosh by 30 
high, and made in about forty-four weeks of 1856 779J tons of 
metal out of brown hematite ore from banks four miles south¬ 
west. Old Etowah Furnace built 1837, abandoned 1844, torn 
down 1850, stood alongside of the present furnace. 

247. Pool Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by B. G. 
Pool and J. W. Lewis of Cartersville, managed by B. G. 
Pool, Etawah, Cass county Georgia, and standing on Stamp 
Creek, ten miles east by south from Cartersville Station, eight 
miles above or north of Etowah Furnace, and twelve miles 
southeast of Cassville, was built in 1855, 8 feet across the bosh 
by 33 feet high, and made in fifteen weeks of 1856 316 tons of 
metal from red hematite ore from Big Spring bank three miles 
west and Peach Tree bank three miles distant to the northwest. 

248. Union Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by D. 
S. and A. M. Ford, Cartersville P.O. Cass county Georgia, 
stands on Stamp Creek, nine miles east by north of Cartersville 
Station, two miles northwest (above) Pool Furnace, twelve miles 
southeast of Cassville, on the road to Canton, fifteen miles from 
Canton, was to have a hot-Uast after Christmas 1857; was built 
in 1852, 74 feet across the bosh by 30 feet high, and made in 
twenty-three and a half weeks of 1856 536 tons of metal out of 
brown (?) hematite and black oxide ores from several banks 
within two miles northwest. 

249. Lewis’ Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Dr. 
J. W. Lewis, of Cartersville, leased and managed by Lewis 

H 



78 


TABLE H. —CHARCOAL FURNACES IN GEORGIA. 


& (T. A.) Jones, and situated on Stamp Creek, one mile above 
Union Furnace, ten miles east by north from Cartersville 
Station, and in Cass county, Georgia, was built about 1847, 7J 
feet across the bosh by 26 feet high, and made in about thirty 
weeks of 1856 about 400 tons of metal out of brown hematite 
ore from its own Big Bank two miles distant northwest, mixed 
with ore from Peach Tree bank two miles west. 

250. Cartersville Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by the heirs of Henry and Arnold Milner, Vm. Milner exe¬ 
cutor, and managed by H. Milner, and standing on Pettit’s 
Creek, six miles south of Cassville and two and a half miles 
north of Cartersville Station, was built in 1852, 7J feet across 
the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in about seventeen weeks of 
1856 about 400 tons of metal out of brown hematite ore from 
Foster’s, Fullmore’s, Giton’s and Milner’s banks three miles 
northeast and east. 

251. Clear Creek Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by ¥m. H. Bishop of Tunnel Hill P.O. Whitefield county, 
and situated in Walker county, Georgia, twelve miles east of 
La Fayette, on Clear Creek, a branch of the Armuchy, five 
miles east of its mouth, and fourteen miles west of Resaca, 
was built about 1852 by A. J. Stroup, and rebuilt by the pre¬ 
sent owner in 1857 8 feet across the bosh by 24 feet high, and 
made in thirteen weeks of 1855 about 237 tons of metal out of 
red fossiliferous ore (Formation V. Clinton or Upper Silurian) 
from Taylor’s Ridge six miles west, mixed with brown hematite 
from Snake Creek banks eight miles east and also gravel ore 
from one and a half miles south. 

252. Round Mountain Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned and managed by Samuel P. L. Marshall, Blue Pond 
P.O. Cherokee county Alabama, and standing a half mile from 
the Coosa River, five miles southwest of Cedar Bluff, and five 
miles north of Centre, was built in 1852, 7| feet across the bosh 
by 32 feet high, and has made during the three years previous 
to 1857 an average of 11 tons per week of metal out of red fossil 
ore from mines two hundred yards west of furnace. 

253. Polkville Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Goode, Morris & Co. Morrisville P.O. Benton county Alabama, 
standing on Cane Creek, five miles east of Coosa River, opposite 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN ALABAMA. 


T9 


the Ten Islands, fifteen miles south of west from Jacksonville, 
and seven miles west of Alexandria, was built in 1843, rebuilt 
in 1857, 7 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in 
about thirty weeks of 1856 about 350 tons of foundry metal out 
of brown hematite ore from Chalybeate Springs bank two miles 
distant to the north and six other openings near the same. 

254. Shelby Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Horace Ware of Columbiana, and leased by Clabaugh and 
Poole, is situated seven miles w r est of Coosa River, five miles 
south of Columbiana Railroad Station, seventeen miles east of 
Montevallo, sixty-two miles north of Montgomery, fifty-five 
miles north of Wetnmpka, on the line of one of the contem¬ 
plated routes for the Alabama Central railroad. It was built 
in 1849, rebuilt in 1855, 8 feet across the bosh by 29 feet high 
and made in thirty-five weeks of 1856 965J tons of foundry 
metal out of fibrous brown hematite ore from a ridge one mile 
long by half a mile wide at present opened three hundred yards 
to the north of the furnace. 

255. Russellville Charcoal Furnace, in Franklin county Alabama, was built 
about 1818, abandoned about 1827, and is all in ruins. 

255. Independence Charcoal Furnace, owned by the Carters of Elizabethton, 
stands one and a half miles above Ward’s Forge, on Vaught’s Creek, in Johnson 
county Tennessee, and was abandoned between 1845 and ’47. 

257. Amanda Charcoal Furnace, situated in Sullivan county Tennessee, 
on Little Sinking Creek, a half mile above Franklin Furnace, was built in 1837 by 
Geo. Bushong who tore it down after the first blast, and built Franklin. 

258. Franklin Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
William Bushong, Holston Yalley P.O. Sullivan county Ten¬ 
nessee, stands on Big Sinking Creek, twelve miles northwest of 
Elizabethton, two miles southwest of Papersville and four and a 
half miles southeast of Bristol; was built in 1838, is 8 feet across 
the bosh by 33 feet high, and makes about 150 tons of metal per 
annum out of hematite ore from Sharp’s and Crockett’s banks 
four or five miles north. 

259. Holston or Welcher’s Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Welcher and Patton, managed by S. K. K and J. 
A. Patton, and situated in Sullivan county Tennessee, six miles 
south of the Bristol Railroad station, was built in 1838, is 8£ feet 
across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in twenty-three weeks 

H 


80 TABLE H.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EAST TENNESSEE. 

of 1856 232 tons of metal out of hematite ore from Sharp’s 
bank six miles and Crockett’s bank three and a half miles dis¬ 
tant to the northeast. 

260.261. Two old Furnaces on Beaver Creek close to Beaver Creek Forge 
in Sullivan county Tennessee, were abandoned in 1837, and only the stacks 
remain. 

262. Union Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Car¬ 
ter & Co. Elizabeth P.O. Carter county Tennessee, is so called 
from the union of Evelina and JErial Furnaces, on Stony Creek, 
five miles above its junction with Watauga River, and eight 
miles east-northeast of Elizabethtown, which is six miles south¬ 
east of the junction of Doe and Watauga Rivers. It was built 
in 1847, and rebuilt 1855, 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and 
in the three years previous to 1857 has made an average of 17 
tons of metal per week during about twenty weeks of each 
year, using brown hematite ore from Grindstaff and Hodge 
banks a half mile southeast and four miles east, mixed with red 
fossil ore from Canaan bank a mile to the northwest. 

263. Evelina Charcoal Furnace, in Carter county, on a small branch, 
one quarter of a mile southeast of Union Furnace, was built in 1835, and torn down 
in 1847. 

264. Aerial Charcoal Furnace, in Carter county, on a email branch, one 
and a half miles west of Union Furnace, was built in 1818, and torn down in 
1847. 

265. O’Brien’s Charcoal Furnace, in Carter county, on Doe River, five 
miles east of Elizabethton, was built in 1836, and after two years’ trial abandoned 
to ruin. 

266. White’s Charcoal Furnace, eighteen miles southwest of Elizabeth¬ 
ton, in Carter county, Tennessee, was built about 1810 and abandoned sometime 
between 1845 and ’47. 

267. Little Troublesome Furnace, in Carter county, was built in 1839, and 
abandoned about 1842. 

263. Rockbridge Charcoal Furnace, owned by the Carters of Elizabeth¬ 
ton, stands on Little Stony Creek, two miles north of Farm Hall Forge, was built 
about 1840, abandoned in 1845, and is now a ruin. 

269. Pleasant Valley Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Robert L. Blair, Brothers and others, Cox’s Store P.O. 
Washington county Tennessee, managed by John L.'Blair, and 
situated opposite the Tennessee and Virginia railroad on the 
Molichucky River, in south side of the main Tennessee Talley 
and eight miles southwest of Jonesborough, is 8 feet across the 
H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EAST TENNESSEE. 


81 


bosli by 28 feet liigli and made in about seventeen weeks of 1856 
about 220 tons of metal out of hematite ore from a bank two 
and a half miles west of south. 

270. Clark’s Creak Charcoal Furnace, owned by Robert L. Blair and others, 
within four miles of Pleasant Valley Furnace, has never been used by its proprie¬ 
tors, is dilapidated, but a good stack remains. 

271. Bright Hope Charcoal Furnace, originally owned by John Shields, 
is situated about eighteen miles west of Cleek’s Forge, in Greene county Ten¬ 
nessee, was built about 1807, and ruined by a flood previous to 1837. A cupola 
furnace still in use marks the spot. 

272. Legion Charcoal Furnace, on the head waters of Meadow Creek, 
about twelve miles northwest from Paint Rock, twelve miles east of Newport, and 
in Cocke county, was built about 1807, and abandoned about 1827. 

273. Love’s Charcoal Furnace, owned by And. Smith & Co, on the Little 
East Fork of Little Pigeon, sixteen miles east of Sevierville, and in Sevier county, 
Tennessee, was built probably about 1837 by Wm. and Jos. Love, and abandoned 
about 1852 to ruin. 

274. Ball Play Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Glenn and Hall, Ball Flay P.O. Monroe county, Ten¬ 
nessee, on Ball Play Creek, twelve miles east of Madisonville, 
ten miles northeast of Tellico Furnace, and twenty-eight miles 
west of south from Amerine Forge, was built in 1851, 7-J 
feet across the bosh by 82 feet high, and made in about eight 
weeks of 1854 about 135 tons of metal out of brown hematite 
ore from a bank one mile west in the butt of the Harland 
Mountain. It has made nothing since. 

275. Tellico Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
the Tellico Manufacturing Company, Elisha Johnson, president 
and manager, Tellico Plains P.O. Monroe county, Tennessee, 
stands on Tellico Eiver at the upper end of the plains, twelve 
miles southeast of Madisonville, ten miles southwest of Ball 
Play Furnace, thirty miles north of Ducktown twenty-two miles 
southeast of Athens, the nearest railroad station. It was built 
in 1840, is 9 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high, and made 
during thirty-nine weeks of 1855 about 550 tons of metal out of 
brown hematite ore from twelve banks, the principal one two 
miles southwest, and the rest between it and the stack, and has 
made nothing since 1856. 

276. Cumberland Gap Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Geo. G. Hewlee, and managed by Hiram Holler, 

6 H 


82 TABLE n.—CHAECOAL FUENACES IN EAST TENNESSEE. 

Cumoerland Gap P.O. Claiborne comity Tennessee, is situated 
at the extreme southwestern point of Virginia, 116 miles west 
of Abingdon, 60 miles north-northeast of Knoxville, in the main 
pass of the Cumberland Mountains, five miles north of Powell’s 
River, a branch of Clinch River, and twelve miles north of 
Tazewell, is 10 feet across the bosh by 28 feet high, and makes 
150 tons of metal per annum out of fossil ore from an opening 
five hundred yards off. 

277. Belleville Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Reuben Rose of Tazewell, and Geo. W. Rose, Cumberland Gap 
P.O. on Indian Creek, twelve miles northeast of Tazewell, 
five east of Cumberland Gap, thirty west of Jonesville, and 
one mile south of State line, was built in 1828, is 9 feet across 
the bosh by 82 feet high, stood idle from 1853 till 1857, when 
it made in fourteen weeks about 400 tons of metal out of dye- 
stone or red fossiliferous ore Formation V. from openings four 

. miles off to the east and to the west-northwest. 

278. Speedwell Charcoal Furnace, situated twelve miles northeast of Jacks- 
borough, in Campbell county, Tennessee, was built about 1815, after Speedwell 
Forge, and was abandoned about ] 830. 

279. Sharp’s Charcoal Furnace, in Granger county Tennessee, was abandoned 
about the year 1845. 

* 

280. Miller’s Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Lewis Miller and W. Longmire, Loy’s Cross Roads P.O. Union 
county Tennessee, and situated on Buffalo Creek, nine and a half 
miles west of Maynardsville and half a mile southeast of Loy’s 
Cross Roads, was built about 1837, is 7 feet across the bosh by 
29 feet high, and made in two weeks of 1856 but 12 tons of metal 
out of dyestone (fossil) ore from openings to the east and south. 

V 

281. Eagle Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, No. 1, owned by the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing 
Company, R. Cravens agent, and situated on White’s Creek, 
sixteen miles west of Kingston, two miles north of its mouth 
opposite Jackson Ferry and White’s Creek shoals, thirty miles 
west of Loudon, twenty-two miles west of Sweet Water the 
nearest railroad station. Sixty miles by steamboat from the 
Nashville railroad at Chattanooga with Memphis connections, 
was built in 1839, is 8 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and 
made* in 1854 about 450 tons of metal (one-fourtli foundry) out 
of dyestone or red fossil (Clinton, Upper Silurian, No. V.) ore 

H 


COKE FURNACES IN WESTERN MARYLAND. 


83 


outcropping along the south side of the Tennessee River Stone- 
coal caps the mountain two miles off. Added its steam power 
lately. 

282. Eagle Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 2, owned by R. Craven of 
Chattanooga, Hamilton county Tennessee, stands on White’s Creek, in Roane 
county, close to Eagle No. 1, was built by R. Cravens, in 1844, of brick, for an 
experiment, stood about a year, and ran five or six weeks; is 4 feet across the bosh 
by 20 feet high, made from one to one and a quarter tons of very poor iron per 
day, and has been since abandoned. 

283. Finey Grove Charcoal Furnace, in Roane county, on White’s Creek, 
close by Turnpike Forge, 3 miles northwest of Eagle Furnace. Built 1823, aban¬ 
doned 1828. 

284. Bluff Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company, R, 
Cravens agent, Chattanooga, stands in Chattanooga, on the 
Tennessee River, under the bluff, three-quarters of a mile north 
from the railroad station and thirty-eight miles by railway 
northwest of Dalton ; was built in 1854, 10| feet across the 
bosh by 40 feet high, but made nothing until 1856 in about 
thirteen weeks of which year were made about 172 tons of 
metal out of fossil dyestone ore from Jackson’s bank sixty miles 
up the river, near the dividing line between Roane and Meigs 
counties, three miles south of Eagle Furnace. The bituminous 
coal of the Raccoon Mines, now leased and worked by the Etna 
Mining Company, can be brought to furnace by railway; it is 
excellent for coke, and some thoughts are entertained of turning 
the present furnace into a coke furnace. 

285. Lena Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, owned by J. F. Penniman, of 
Union Square, New York, T. J. McKay, agent, Cumberland P.O. Alleghany county, 
Maryland, stands on the line of the Mount Savage Railroad, a half mile northwest 
of Cumberland, was built in 1846, 8 feet across the bosh by 28 feet high, and has 
stood idle seven years. 

286.287.288. Mount Savage Steam Hot-blast Coke 
Furnaces, Nos. 1,2 and 3, owned by the Mountain Savage Iron 
Company, and managed by Joseph Purser, Cumberland 
P.O. Alleghany county Maryland, are situated nine miles north¬ 
west of Cumberland, in the midst of the Frostburg Coal Basin, 
and are connected with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at 
Cumberland by a branch road eleven miles long. No. 1 was 
built in 1840, is 15 feet across the bosh by 50 feet high, and 
made in forty-four weeks of 1856 4,528 tons of metal for rail- 

H 


84 TABLE H.—CIIAItCOAL FURNACES m NORTHERN VIRGINIA. 

road purposes. No. 2 was built in 1840, is 15 feet across the 
bosh by 50 feet high, and made in forty-six weeks of 1854 
about 4,500 tons of metal, since which it has stood idle. No. 
3 was commenced in 1845, 52 feet high and has never been 
lined. These furnaces were built to use the Carbonate ores of 
the Frostburg coal basin, but did use chiefly the red fossil 
Upper Silurian ores of Formation "V. near Cumberland mixed 
with some ores of middle Maryland. 

289. Lonaconing Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, 

owned by the George’s Creek Coal and Iron Company Dr. J. C. 
Atkinson superintendent, Lonaconing P.O. Alleghany county 
Maryland, is situated a quarter of a mile below Lonaconing Sta¬ 
tion on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and bears date 1837, 
although there was an older charcoal furnace on the site. It is 
15 feet across the bosh by 50 high and made in 1855 1,860 tons 
of iron from local ball and bog ores belonging to the Coal 
measures. 

290. Virginia Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Harrison, Hagans & Co. and managed by ~Wm. Hagans, Bran- 
donville P.O. Preston county Virginia, stands one mile south 
of Brandonville and six east of north of Kingwood, was built in 
1854, 11 feet across the bosh by 36 feet high, and has made but 
little iron, averaging twenty-five tons per week of chiefly forge 
metal out of limestone carbonate ore mixed with bone ore and 
some little fossil ore from the opposite side of the creek. 

291. Old Valley Charcoal Furnace, owned by William Douglass, stands in 
ruins eight miles north of west from Brandonville, three miles north of Greenville 
Furnace, since 1840. 

292. Greenville Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by H. and E. M. 
Hagans, stands in good repair six miles west of Brandonville and fifteen north- 
northwest of Virginia Furnace, but has made nothing since 1847, being built in 
1840. It is probably abandoned. 

293. Davis Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, situated in Monongalia county, 

Virginia, one mile northwest of Henry Clay Furnace, has not been in blast for 
twenty-six years, and is in ruins. ' 

294. Henry Clay Charcoal Furnace, owned by the Laurel 
Iron Company, Duncan J. Perry, manager, Pridevale P.O. Mon¬ 
ongalia county, Virginia, stands in bad repair without machinery 
on Tom Quarry Run, four miles southeast of Pridevale and on 
the Pridevale Iron Company’s lands, three miles from the river, 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHWEST VIRGINIA. 


85 


and connected with the forge and rolling mill by a railroad of 
an easy grade. It has not been in blast for a dozen years. 

295. Woodgrove Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by the Laurel Iron conijiany, and managed 
by Duncan J. Perry, Pridevale P.O. Monongalia county, Vir¬ 
ginia, stands three miles east of Pridevale, on the road to Union- 
town and within two miles of the State line; was built about 
1826 by Mr. Jackson, and rebuilt in 1842, 7 feet across the bosh 
by 38 feet high, and made in about nine weeks of 1856 about 
100 tons of metal out of blue lump carbonate ore from three 
miles northeast in the coal measures. 

296. Anna (once Mars) Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned and managed by the same as Woodgrove, and 
standing on the right bank of Cheat River in the village of 
Pridevale, and on the Pridevale Company’s lands, was built by 
Ellicott of Baltimore in 1847 and changed its name in 1853 ; is 
10 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high, ran a few weeks in 1854 
with coke and in fifteen weeks of 1856 made 396J tons of metal 
out of Marten bank ore a crop hematite of the coal measures, 
three miles off southeast. 

297, Valley Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
James Kingsley, and managed by John Kingsley, Morgantown, 
P.O. Monongalia county Virginia, on Decker’s Creek, four 
miles from Morgantown, five miles from Pridevale Perry, was 
built about 1800, rebuilt in 1831, 8 feet across the bosh by 34 
feet high, and made in 1856 perhaps 400 tons of railroad iron 
out of ore-banks within the circuit of a mile. 

298, Clinton Steam Cold-blast Charcoal and Coke Fur¬ 
nace, owned by George Hardman, managed by Barney New¬ 
man, Clinton Furnace P.O. Monongalia county Virginia, and 
situated on Bull’s Creek nine miles south of Morgantown, four 
miles* south of Smithtown, and fourteen north of Independence, 
was built in 1847 and enlarged in 1855, to 8^ feet across the 
bosh by 32 feet high, and made in fifteen weeks of 1856 321 \ 
tons of charcoal forge and coke foundry metal out of crop hema¬ 
tite Reed ore from the coal measures two and a half miles 
north. 


H 


86 TABLE H.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTI 'WEST VIRGINIA. 


299. Piney Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by R. and W. Miller, managed by J. P. Thoburn, Wheeling 
Virginia, and situated in Marion county Virginia, on Piney 
Run, five miles east of Fairmount, and two and a half miles 
from Winfield, was built probably about 1851, 8£ feet across 
the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in thirty-seven weeks of 
1856 800 tons of metal out of coal measure hematite crop ore 
from half a mile north and south. Rot in blast since the begin¬ 
ning of 1856 and tunnel head gone. 

300. West Fork Oold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Squire Brice of 
Fairmount, stands in good order but abandoned in Marion county Virginia, six 
miles from Fairmount. It has not run for twenty years. Another furnace, i» 
Marion county, 8 miles east of Fairmount, and 8 miles west of Fetterman, on Tygar* 
River, was in the way of the railroad, and therefore torn down. 

301. Lancaster Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace 

owned by Umbles & Dickinson, of Gap, Lancaster county Penn 
sylvania, managed by A. Willis, of Raccoon, Preston county 
Virginia, and situated in Taylor county Virginia, three mile? 
west of Independence, was built in October 1856, 8 feet acrosf 
the bosh by 33 feet high, and uses limestone carbonate ore from 
the coal measures three-quarters of a mile east, mixed wfith 
crop hematite ore of the same from six miles north. 

302. Clarksburg Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 1, owned by the late 
Judge Jackson of Clarksburg, one mile east of Clarksburg, Harrison county Vir¬ 
ginia, was destroyed about 1847. 

303. Clarksburg Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 2, owned by the late Col. 
Ben. Wilson of Clarksburg, one mile west of Clarksburg, Harrison county Virginia, 
was torn down about 1846. 

304. Valley (once Fanny) Steam Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by William Whitman of Baltimore, and man¬ 
aged by Jacob Baker, Jr. Restorville P.O. Barbour county 
Virginia, stands on Breshet Fork of Tieter’s Creek, two miles 
above the forks, sixteen south of Independence, and fifteen 
miles southeast of Thornton, and was built about 1845, 8 feet 
across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in about twenty-two 
weeks of 1855, about 400 tons of metal out of blue lump car¬ 
bonate ore of the coal measures mixed with crop or bog 
hematite. 

305. Spring Hill Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Oliphant & Wilson, leased by F. H. Oliphant, man- 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA. 87 

aged by J. K. Duncan, SmitMeld P.O. Fayette county Penn¬ 
sylvania, and situated twelve and a half miles southwest from 
Uniontown, three east of north from FT. Geneva on the Morgan¬ 
town pike and three miles from Cheat Piver, is the fourth stack 
on the old site. The first was built in 1805, the third in 1830, 
and this in 1854, 9 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high, and 
made in twenty-eight weeks of 1856 246 tons of metal out of 
a poor hematite ore from the Snake Den, one hundred yards 
east, mixed with u point ore ” from the mountain one mile 
east. 

306. Fairchance Steam Cold-blast Furnace (and toll¬ 
ing Mill see Table 6 lo. 147), owned by F. H. Oliphant 
Uniontown P.O. Fayette county Pennsylvania, stands six miles 
south of Uniontown on the head waters of George’s Creek, 
which enters the Monongahela Piver at N. Geneva, ninety miles 
above Pittsburg, was built in 1796, is 9 feet across the bosh by 
35 feet high, and made in twelve weeks of 1856 about 600 tons 
of forge metal out of carbonitic ore from, the west bank of Chest¬ 
nut Pidge, six miles south of Uniontown. 

307. Union Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Baldwin & Cheney, managed by Charles Cheney, Connels- 
ville P.O. Fayette county Pennsylvania, and standing on Dun¬ 
bar Creek, four miles southeast of Connelsville, in Dunbar Gap, 
was built in 1796, is 9 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and 
made in thirty-three weeks of 1856 964 tons of metal out of 
carbonitic ores of the coal measures from mines all around. 

303. Coolspring Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Wylie and Robin¬ 
son, Uniontown P.O. Fayette county Pennsylvania, to the south of Uniontown, was 
built in 1820, is 7 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and has been abandoned 
since 1850. 

309. Wharton Steam and Water Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
A. Stewart in 1849, to the south of Uniontown, Fayette county Pennsylvania, was 
built in 1835, is 8 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and has not run for years. 

310. Red Stone Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Worthington & Snyder, Uniontown, Fayette county Penn¬ 
sylvania, on Pedstone Creek, two miles east from Uniontown, 
was built in 1800, was formerly owned by Judge Huston, is 8 
feet across the bosh by 30 high, and made in 1855 550 tons of 
metal out of carbonite ore of the coal measures. 


H 


83 


TABLE II.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA 


311. Mary Ann Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, in Greene county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, thirty miles from l! niontown, was the first furnace built by Mr. Oliphant, Sr., 
about 1777, and is now abandoned. 

312. Fairfield (Fairchance) Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by F. H. 
Oliphant, stands seven miles south from Uniontown, was built in 1794 and is now 
abandoned. 

313. Pine Grove Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Basil Brownfield, 
stands eleven miles from Uniontown, and in Fayette county Pennsylvania, was 
built in 1805* and is now abandoned. 

314. Mt. Vernon Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by George E. Hogg, 
on Jacob’s Creek, in Fayette county Pennsylvania, eight miles north of Connels- 
ville, and nineteen miles from Uniontown, was built in 1805* and is now abandoned. 

315. Fairview Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Joseph Victor, in 
Fayette county Pennsylvania, nine miles from Uniontown, was built in 1810* and is 
now abandoned. 

316. Mt. Hope Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, in Fayette county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, twenty-five miles from Uniontown, was built in 1S10* and is now abandoned. 

317. Mt. 3Btna Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Davidson & Cum¬ 
mings, on the north bank of the Youghiogheny River, in Fayette county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, one and a half miles above Connelsville and twelve miles northeast from 
Uniontown, was built in 1810* and is now abandoned. 

318. St. John’s Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Joseph Pauli, in 
Fayette county Pennsylvania, eight miles from Connelsville, was built in 1S15* and 
is now abandoned. 

319. Centre Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Ewing & Woods, three 
miles up Dunbar Creek, six miles from Uniontown, in Fayette county Pennsylvania, 
was built in 1815* and is now abandoned. 

320. Fayette Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by J. Rogers, twelve 
miles from Uniontown, was built in 1815* and is now abandoned. 

321. Little Falls Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Miltonberger’s 
executors, twelve miles from Uniontown, was built in 1815,* and is abandoned. 

322. Old Laurel Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by James Pauli’s 
administrators, and situated in Fayette county Pennsylvania, three miles up Dunbar 
Creek, above old Union Furnace, and fifteen miles east of north from Uniontown, 
was built in 1820* and is now abandoned. 

323. New Laurel Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by William Walker 
and standing fifteen miles east-northeast from Uniontown, was built in 1835,* and 
is abandoned. 

324. Breakneck Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by John Fuller, and 
situated on Mount’s Creek, in Fayette county Pennsylvania, fifteen miles north¬ 
east from Uniontown, four miles northeast of Connelsville, was built in 1826 and i 3 
now abandoned. 

325. Somerset Coal-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 

* About. 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA. 89 

Hanna and Dyer, stands on tlie Somerset and Johnstown Pike, 
fifteen miles north of Somerset and twelve southwest of Johns¬ 
town was built in 1847, is 8J- feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, 
made no metal from 1848 or ’49 until the spring of 1856, in 
eighteen weeks of which year were produced 247 tons out of 
hematite and fossil carbonate ore from two drifts one hundred 
feet over the tunnel-head, and a third a quarter mile up the left 
side of a branch of Ben’s Creek. 

326. Shade Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Daniel Wyand, Stoys- 
town P.O. Somerset county Pennsylvania, and situated sixteen miles south of Johns¬ 
town, was built in 1812, is 9 feet across the bosh by 30 feet high, and made in 1855 
about 400 tons of metal and is since abandoned. 

327. Wellersburg Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Union Coal and Iron Company, E. L. Parker of 
Baltimore, president, J. P. Agnew, director, Wellersburg, 
Somerset county Pennsylvania, and situated nine miles north¬ 
west of Cumberland, belongs with Mount Savage, Lena and 
Lonaconing—being at the upper end of the Frostburg Coal 
Basin, but inside the Pennsylvania line, on Jenning’s Pun, 
north fork, with a railroad branch to the Mount Savage Branch 
of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. It was built in 1856, 14 
feet across the bosh by 45 feet high, and made an experimental 
blast of 1,200 tons of metal out of coal measure carbonate ores 
mixed with some red fossil of V. and some brown hematite. 

328. Rockingham Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Henry Little (in 
1855) Stoystown P.O. Somerset county Pennsylvania, situated in Somerset county, 
was built in 1844, 6 feet across the bosh by 21 feet high, and is abandoned. 

329. California Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Mathiot & Cummings, and managed by Moses Collins, Laugh- 
lintown, Westmoreland county Pennsylvania, is situated on the 
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh Turnpike, fifty-three miles east 
from the latter, at the foot of Laurel Hill, on Furnace-Run 
Branch of the Loyalhanna River, a mile above its mouth, and 
one mile south of Laughlintown, was built about 1852, 8 feet 
across the bosh by 31 feet high, and made in twenty-one weeks 
of 1856 334 tons of principally foundry iron out of coal measure 
carbonate ore from the Ligonier Coal Basin, the principal bank 
three-quarters of a mile to the north, and others to the east and 
south, mixed with some fossil ore. 


H 


90 


TABLE n.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


330. Washington Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by L. C. Hall, Ligo- 
nier P.0. Westmoreland county Pennsylvania, is situated on the turnpike east of 
Ligonier village, towards Stoystown, at the base of Laurel Hill, was built in 1809, 
9 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high, but is abandoned for the present, and if 
used again will be rebuilt. About 700 tons in 1854 were made. 

331. Valley C Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, owned 
•by L. C. Hall & Co. and managed by L. C. Hall, Ligonier P.O. 
Westmoreland county Pennsylvania, stands four miles south ol 
Ligonier in Ligonier Valley, three miles from the base of Laurel 
Hill and four from that of Chestnut Ridge, nine miles south of 
Hew Florence Station on Pennsylvania Railroad and Canal, 
was built in 1855, is 10 feet across the bosh by 40 feet high, and 
made in ten weeks of each of the years 1855 and 1856 500 tons 
of metal out of coal measure carbonate ball ore, traced three 
and a half miles nearly due north and four south, dipping 
gently both ways into the centre line of the basin —opened from 
the bridgehouse of the furnace each way for half a mile. 

332. Hermitage Coal-blast Charcoal Furnace is situated in Westmoreland 
County Pennsylvania, two miles northeast of Ligonier, on the present Ligonier and 
Johnstown Turnpike, was abandoned many years ago, and is a ruin. 

333. Oak Grove Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Mr. James Tanner 
of Pittsburgh, is situated in Westmoreland county Pennsylvania, was built in 1854 
by John Clifford, is 9 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made an average 
of 500 tons of metal in the three years preceding 1857, when it blew out, in good 
order, but with no probability of its ever being started again. 

334. Ross Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by George T. Pauli, Smith- 
field P.O. Westmoreland county Pennsylvania, is situated four and a half miles 
south of New Florence Railroad Station, and in Fairfield Township, was built in 
1815, is 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, has not been in blast since 1850 and waits 
for a second growth of timber or for bituminous coal. 


335. Laurel Hill Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Jolm Graff of Blairsville, and leased (1856) by E. Hoover, Hew 
Florence P.O. Westmoreland county Pennsylvania, is situated 
three miles east of Hew Florence Railroad Station; was built in 
1846, is 9 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high and has been idle 
since 1855, in which year it made 750 tons of metal. 

336. Conemaugh Hot-blast Coke Furnace, owned by the 
Johnstown Iron Company, J. Rhey, agent, Johnstown P.O. 
Cambria county, Pennsylvania, is situated three miles east of 

H 


COKE FURNACES IN SOUTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA. 


91 


New Florence Station in tlie Gap of Laurel Hill, on tlie 
Conemaugli River and Pennsylvania Railroad, seven and a lialf 
miles northwest of Johnstown; was built in 1847, is 10 feet 
across the bosh by 40 high, and made in twenty-one weeks of 
1856 708-J tons of metal out of coal measure carbonate ore the 
same as used by the Johnstown Furnaces, mixed with a hema¬ 
tite crop ore from a bed recently explored. 

337. Ramsey Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Dr. Spear of Kiskimi- 
netas (1849), stands four miles above Warren in Westmoreland county, was built in 
1847 and has been abandoned. 

338. Lockport Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by William McKinney 
of Lockport (1849) and situated at Lockport Westmoreland county Pennsylvania, 
was built in 1844 by William D. McKernan, tried several times, made little iron, 
and went out finally in the winter of 1846-7. Dr. Schonberger bought and repaired 
it just before his death. It is 8 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and finally 
abandoned. 

339. Buena Vista Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Dr. Alexander Johnson of Hollidaysburgh, Blair county 
Pennsylvania, is situated in Indiana county, four miles north of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad and Canal, and three miles east of 
Armaugh, was built in 1847, 8 feet across the bosh by 31 feet 
high, and made 560 tons of metal in 1854 out of shell and bog 
ore from the neighboring coal measures. Since 1856 it has 
stood idle. 

340. Indiana Hot-blast Charcoal and Coke Furnace, 

owned by Elias Baker of Altoona, Blair county, Pennsylvania, 
and situated near Armaugh in Indiana county, five miles east 
of New Florence Station, was built in 1842, is 9 feet across the 
bosh by 30 feet high, and blew regularly during all of 1857, 
making 1,547 tons of metal out of hematite ore from Baker’s 
Bank, four miles north of Altoona, Blair county. 

341. Black Lick Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Cambria Ron Works, Wood, Morrell & Co, 
lessees, and situated in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, twelve 
miles northeast from Johnstown, was built in 1S46, is 8 feet 
across the bosh by 35 feet high, and made in thirty-five weeks 
of 1856 955 tons of metal. 

342. Loop Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by T. White in 1855, now 
by Wade Hampton of Pittsburg, is situated in Indiana county Pennsylvania, three 



92 TABLE H.-COKE FURNACES IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 

K 

miles below Smicksburg, on L. Mahoning, was built in 1847, is 9 feet across the 
bosh by 33 feet high, and is now abandoned. 

343. Johnstown Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, 

owned by the Johnstown Iron Company (Rhey, Matthews & 
Co.) managed by J. King, Johnstown P.O. Pennsylvania, and 
situated in Cambria county, an eighth of a mile north of Johns- 
town Railroad Station, was built in 1846, is nearly 10 feet across 
the bosh by 40 high, and made in forty-five weeks of 1856 
2,044£ tons of metal out of carbonate of iron with carbonate 
of lime enough to flux, from a gangway eighteen hundred and 
twenty feet distant. 

344. Mill Creek Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, 

owned by the Cambria Ron Works, and leased by Wood, 
Morrell and Company, Johnstown P.O. Cambria county Penn¬ 
sylvania, stands on Mill Creek, three and a half miles southwest 
of Johnstown Railroad Station, is 12 feet across the bosh by 40 
high. Built in 1845 and rebuilt in 1856 it went into blast in 
April of that year, and made in the remaining thirty-five weeks 
2,720 tons of metal, out of coal measure carbonate ore. 

345. Ben’s Creek Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and leased as the last, stands at the mouth of Ben’s Creek, 
near the plank road crossing, three miles south of Johnstown 
Station; was built in 1846, 9 feet across the bosh by 35 feet 
high, and made in thirty-nine weeks of 1856 902 tons of metal, 
out of coal measure ore. 

346. Old Cambria Steam Hot-blast Coke Furnace, 

owned and leased like the two last, on Laurel Run, three- 
quarters of a mile from the Pennsylvania Caqal, three miles 
north of Johnstown Station, was built in 1842, rebuilt in 1854, 

. 9£ feet across the bosh by 38 feet high, and made in fifty weeks 
of 1856 2,225 tons of metal out of carbonate and fossil ores. 
Here Kelly’s process has just been tried with great success. 

347. 348. 349. 350. Cambria Steam Hot-blast Coke 
Furnaces, owned and leased by the same parties as the three 
last named furnaces, all stand on the Johnstown flat, one quarter 
of a mile north of the Johnstown Railroad Station, and a little 
north of the great Cambria Rolling Mill. They are all of one 
size, 13 by 48, although built at different times, Ho 1 in 1854, 
H 


FURNACES IN NORTHERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


93 


rebuilt when Ho. 2 was built in 1854, No. 3 in 1856 and No. 4 
in 1857 but never finished. One engine blows all three. Ho. 1 
made in 1855 6,543 tons, Ho. 2 and 3 in 1856 6,547 and 5,996 
tons of mill metal out of coal measure carbonate of iron ore 
mined in nearly horizontal layers in the hills behind the furnaces. 

351. Eliza Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Alter and others of Phila 
delpbia, in Cambria county Pennsylvania, about four miles above Black lack Fur¬ 
nace, was built in 1846, 9 feet across the bosh by 80 high, and was abandoned in 
1848. 

352. Ashland Charcoal Furnace, owned in 1849 by Hugh McNeil, Summit 
P.O. on Clearfield Creek, Cambria county Pennsylvania, six miles north of Galitzen 
station, was built in 1847 8 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and abandoned 
in 1851. 

353. Farrandsvilla Hot-blast Coke Furnace, owned by 
Fallon and others of Philadelphia, situated in Clinton county 
Pennsylvania, six miles north of Lock Haven, was built in 1834 
10 x 45, of cut stone and at great expense, with apparatus and 
surroundings on the same scale, in confident expectation of 
smelting coal measure ores with semi-bituminous coal or coke, 
and at least half a million of dollars were expended before 
proper experiments had tested the quality of the coal and ore 
beds. In the end the whole was abandoned about 1838. 

i 

354. Astonville Hot-blast Charcoal and Anthracite * 
Furnace, owned by William Thompson, Kalston P.O. Lycom¬ 
ing county Pennsylvania, stands near the village of Ralston, 
and near the Williamsport and Elmira Railroad and Lycoming 
Creek, was built for charcoal in 1855, 10 feet across the bosh 
by 37 feet high, and only made 7 weeks blast on anthracite. It 
will produce 12 tons per day with Ralston (No. XI.) ore; and 
may have produced in 1856 700 tons charcoal iron, and in 
1857 100 tons of anthracite iron. 

355. Ralston Hot-blast Charcoal and Anthracite* Furnace, owned by 
the Lycoming Iron and Coal company, managed by J. D. Mitchell, Ralston P.O. 
Lycoming county Pennsylvania, and situated in the village of Ralston, on the 
Williamsport and Elmira Railroad and Lycoming Creek; was erected in 1854 in the 
place of the old furnace burnt down in 1853-54. It is 16 feet across the bosh by 
45 feet high, and can produce 20 tons a day with anthracite and Ralston ore. It 
made say 75 tons in 1856. There are 2 beds of coal on the top of the mountain 
back of the furnace. A railroad ascends to the mines. After two unsuccessful 
blasts the furnace was abandoned. The ore is a carbonate of iron in solid layers 
and in balls, underlying the bottom conglomerate of the coal measures. 


*Not noticed in Anthracite Table. 


H 


94 TABLE n. — FURNACES IN NORTHERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


356. Carterville Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Carter and 
Company, Ralston P.O. Lycoming county Pennsylvania, situated south of Ralston, 
was built in 1854, 10 feet across the bosh by 35 high, and is abandoned. 

357. Mansfield Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Mansfield Iron Company, Mansfield P.O. 
Tioga county Pennsylvania, on the west bank of the Tioga 
River, opposite the village of Mansfield, and ten miles north of 
Blossburg, was built in 1854, 10 feet across the bosh by 33 feet 
high, and made in twenty-one weeks of 1856 about 600 tons of 
metal out of a peculiar fossiliferous ore from three miles west, 
on the rolling country of Formation YHI. three or four hundred 
feet above the river on the road to Wellsborough. 

358. Blossburg Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by James H. Gulick, 
Blossburg P.O. Pennsylvania, in the town of Blossburg, Tioga county, was built in 
1841, 7£ feet across the bosh by 21 feet high, and is so much out of repair that it 
will probably be no more used. There is a rolling mill attached. 

359. Rock Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by T. A. Scott, Al¬ 
toona, Pennsylvania, stands on Roaring Run, in Apollo Township, Armstrong county 
Pennsylvania, four miles east of Warren ; was built in 1847, 8 feet across the bosh 
by 30 feet high, and made about 100 tons in 1855, and nothing since. 

360. Winfield Steam Hot-blast Charcoal and Coke 
Furnace, owned by the Winfield Coal and Iron Company, 
and managed by D. R. Smith, Slate Lick P.O. Armstrong 
county Pennsylvania, and situated on Rough Run, eight miles 
west of north from Freeport, in Butler county fourteen miles 
southeast of Butler, was built in 1848, 9 feet across the bosh by 
37 feet high, and made in twenty-four weeks of 1856 about 
1,400 tons of mostly foundry metal out of soft hematized out¬ 
crop coal measure carbonate ore found in a layer two feet 
thick. 

361 Buffalo Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, Ho. 1, 

owned by P. Gruff & Co. and managed by Joseph C. Ring, 
Rittaiming P.O. Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, on Buffalo 
Creek, at the Kittanning and Butler Pike crossing, six miles 
west of Kittanning, forty north of Pittsburg, and fourteen east 
of Butler ; was built in 1846, 8 feet across the bosh by 35 feet 
high, and made in about thirty-nine weeks of 1855 1,719 tons of 
forge and foundry metal out of the same kind of ore as at 
Brady’s Bend. 

362. Buffalo Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, Ho. 

2, owned, managed, and situated as Ho. 1, was built in 1839, is 

H 


CHARCOAL AND COKE FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


95 


9 feet across tlie bosh by 36 feet high, and made in forty-six 
weeks of 1856 2,081 tons of metal. 

363. Cowanshannock Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by James E. 
Brown, Kittanning P.O. Armstrong county Pennsylvania, is situated three miles 
north of Kittanning, and one mile up Cowanshannock Creek, was built in 1845, 8 
feet across the bosh, and abandoned in 1851. 

364. Pine Creek Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Brown and Mosgrove, managed by James Mosgrove, 
Kittanning P.O. Armstrong county Pennsylvania, and situ¬ 
ated in Yalley (formerly Pine) township, on Pine Creek, six 
miles east of Kittanning, was built in 1846, 10 feet across the 
bosh by 32 feet high and made in twenty-six weeks of 1856 
1,295 tons of forge metal out of fossil limestone ore from beds 
in the coal measures four miles round, the principal openings 
being within four hundred yards. 

365. Ore Hill Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by William 
McCutcheon, and managed by Jesse Bell, Kittanning P.O., Armstrong county 
Pennsylvania, on the Alleghany River, eight miles east of north from Kittanning 
and on the Olean road was built in 1845, and blew out in the spring of 1857 for 
want of wood. It is 8£ feet across the bosh by 34 feet high, and made in forty- 
one weeks of 1856 1,525 tons of mottle iron, out of limestone carbonate ore, 
from two miles above the furnace on each side of the river, and on each side of 
Whisky Hollow. 

366. America Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by John Jamieson, James Knight, Kittanning P.O., 
Armstrong county Pennsylvania, on the Alleghany River, ten 
miles northwest of Kittanning, was built in 1846, 8 feet across 
the bosh by 28 feet high, and made in forty-one weeks of 1856 
1,600 tons of forge metal out of fossiliferous limestone ore, out¬ 
cropping horizontally among the coal measures in all directions 
around the furnace, within three miles. 

367. Alleghany Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by A. McMickle in 
1850, situated in Armstrong county Pennsylvania, to the north of Kittanning, was 
built in 1830 and abandoned before 1850. 

368. Stewardson Steam Hot-blast Charcoal and Coke 
Furnace, owned by Alex. Laughlin and managed by Joseph 
Steele & R. B. Laughlin, Kittanning P.O. Armstrong county 
Pennsylvania, stands on Mahoning Creek one and a half miles 
from the Alleghany River and eleven northeast from Kittan¬ 
ning. Built in 1851 (for coke, but not very successful) it is 11^ 
feet across the bosh by 40 feet high, made in thirty-two weeks 

H 


96 TABLE n. —CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

of 1856 1,147 tons of metal, 120 tons of which were by coke, out 
of limestone carbonate ore from the coal measures two miles 
around. 

369. Mahoning Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by J. A. Caldwell & Co. Kittanning P.O. Armstrong 
county Pennsylvania, stands on the Mahoning Creek ten miles 
above its mouth and fifteen northeast of Kittanning. Built in 
1845, 10 feet across the bosh by 83 feet high, it made in forty- 
six weeks of 1856 1,796 tons of forge metal out of hard blue 
carbonate lying on a limestone bed in the coal measures one 
hundred feet above the water, within a mile. 

370. Olney Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by John McCrea, 
and managed (1854, ’55) by W. W. Corbet, Kittanning P.O. Armstrong county Penn¬ 
sylvania, stands on Mahoning Creek, fourteen miles above its mouth and seventeen 
north of east from Kittanning. Built in 1847 and enlarged in 1855 to 9 feet across 
the bosh by 32 feet high, it has been out of blast three years and made in twenty- 
three weeks of 1855 568 tons of metal out of fossiliferous and hard limestone ore, 
from beds in the coal measures within three miles around. 

371. Phoenix Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Governor Johnson 
of Pittsburg, H. N. Lee, William Philips and James Laughlin, is situated on the 
north side of Mahoning Creek, in Armstrong county Pennsylvania, five miles above 
Olney Furnace. Built in 1846, 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, it has been 
out of blast since 1853, but is in sufficiently good order to go into blast again. Its 
ore is a loamy outcrop of the lower (buhrstone) ore, dirty and soft, making the best 
of foundry iron. 

372.373.374.375. Brady’s Bend Steam Hot-blast 
Charcoal Furnaces, Nos. 1, 2,3 and 4, owned by M. P. Sawyer 
of Boston and others, Great Western Iron Works, Brady’s Bend 
P.O. Armstrong county Pennsylvania, are situated on the Alle¬ 
ghany Biver, fifty-five miles by land and seventy by water 
above Pittsburgh. No. 1 was built in 1840, 14 feet across the 
bosh by 50 feet high, and made in the year 1856 5,391 tons of 
forge metal out of coal measure carbonate ore from mines one 
and a half miles south of the works. No. 2 was built in 1841, 
the same size and made in 1856 5,576 tons. No. 3 was built in 
1843, is 11 by 43, and made in eighteen weeks of 1854 1,745 
tons of metal, and ran only two weeks in 1856. No. 4 was 
built in 1846, is 11 by 43 also, and made in four weeks of 1855 
218 tons forge metal. 

376. Red Bank Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Reynolds and Richie in 1850, Red Bank P.O. Arm- 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA. 97 

strong county Pennsylvania, stands on Red Bank Creek, was 
Built in 1842, 9 feet in the bosh by 32 feet high and made in 
1854 and ’55 perhaps 2,000 tons. 

377. Pike Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by Hunter Orr, Clarion P.O. Clarion county 
Pennsylvania, stands on Fiddler’s Run or Lowsonham Creek, 
half a mile from Red Bank Creek and five miles from the Alle¬ 
ghany River, nineteen miles from Clarion and sixty-two from 
Pittsburg. It was built in 1845, is 8 feet across the bosh by 30 
high, and made in thirty-six weeks of 1856 1,012 tons of metal 
from limestone ore, soft brown and hard blue, in beds which 
crop out among the coal measures horizontally around the 
furnace. 

378. Franklin (Old Wild Cat) Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, lately 
owned by John L. Miller of Pittsburg, is situated in Clarion county, one mile east 
of Pinksville (Remersburg), and seventeen miles north of Kittanning, was built in 
1843, 7J feet across the bosh by 28 feet high, and made in 1856 1,380 tons of 
metal and was abandoned in 1857. 

379. St. Charles Steam Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by Patrick Kerr, Clarion P.O. Clarion county Penn¬ 
sylvania, on Leatherwood Creek, at the Olean Road Crossing, 
two and a half miles west of the Alleghany Yalley Railroad 
location line, and twenty north of Kittanning, was built in 1844, 
is 10 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in fifty 
weeks of 1856 about 2,000 tons of forge metal out of limestone 
carbonate ore which outcrops among the coal measures on both 
sides of the creek valley. 

380. Catfish Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Alex. Miller, leased by J. L. Miller, and managed by 
J. H. Kahl, Clarion P.O. Clarion county Pennsylvania, stands 
on the Alleghany River, three miles north of the Great Western 
Iron Works (Brady’s Bend), at the mouth of Catfish Creek, on 
the Kittanning and Clarion Road, five miles south of Remers¬ 
burg and west of Franklin Furnace. It was built in 1846, 
8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and made in thirty-three 
weeks of 1856 925J tons of metal out of carbonate and bog ores 
from the coal measures within a mile to the north. 

381. Black Fox Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace } 

owned by Jacob Painter and others, and managed by S. Barr, 

7 H 


98 TABLE H.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

Clarion P.O. Clarion county Pennsylvania, stands on the Alle¬ 
ghany River, one mile above Miller’s Eddy, six miles north ot 
Brady’s Bend, on the Brady’s Bend—Clarion Hoad, twenty 
miles south of Clarion. It was built in 1844, 9 feet across the 
bosh by 30 high, and made'in thirty-five weeks of 1856 1,353 
tons of metal out of red limestone ore (buhrstone) from beds 
among the coal measures within five miles’ hauling. 

382. Maple Steam Charcoal Furnace, owned and man¬ 
aged by M. S. Adams, Butler P.O. Butler county Pennsylvania, 
on Little Bear Creek, four miles west of the Alleghany River, 
twelve north of Brady’s Bend, on Brady’s Bend—Franklin 
Road, was built in 1843, 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and 
made in twenty-four weeks of 1856 810 tons of metal out of 
coal measure carbonate ores from mines three miles south and 
east. 

383. Dudley Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Crawford and Arnold of Kittanning, and managed 
by Robert Crawford, Kittanning P.O. Armstrong county Penn¬ 
sylvania, is situated in Butler county, a half mile east of Mar- 
tinsburg, two and a half west of Alleghany River, near Maple 
Furnace, and seven miles northwest of the Great Western Iron 
Works, was built in 1857, and fired up first on the fifteenth of> 
December of that year. 

384. Kensington Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Lenier & Co. 
Bankers of New York, and situated in Butler county Pennsylvania, to the westward 
of the Great Western Iron Works, was built in 1847, 8 feet across the bosh by 80 
high, and made about 1,100 tons of metal in the years 1854 and ’55, and was then 
abandoned for want of ore. 

385. Bear Creek Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, in Butler county Pennsylva¬ 
nia, one mile back of Lawrenceburg, on the west side of the Alleghany River, above 

Brady’s Bend, has been abandoned many years and is dilapidated. 

* 

386. Hickory Cold-blast Furnace, in Butler county Penn¬ 
sylvania, on Slippery Rock Creek at the Falls, twenty-six miles 
south of Franklin, on the main road to Pittsburg, twenty east 
of Newcastle and two and a half miles north of the four corners 
of the Pittsburg—Erie and Pittsburg—Franklin pikes, was 
built in 1840, 8 feet across the bosh by 28 feet high, and made in 
twenty weeks of 1855 750 tons of chiefly foundry metal out of 
soft red fossiliferous limestone ore from a number of beds lying 
between coal measures within four miles around furnace. 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA. 99 


387. Marion Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by Case & Co. Harrisville, Butler county Pennsylva¬ 
nia, on the bead waters of Slippery Bock Creek, four miles 
north of Harrisville, was built in 1848, 8 feet across the bosh by 
32 feet high, and makes about 500 tons per annum out of the 
buhrstone ore of the Lower coal mines. 

388. Stapley Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned and managed by B. and C. Shippen, Shippenville, 
Clarion county Pennsylvania, is situated four miles north of 
Emlenton and east of Glen (on the Alleghany Biver), and one 
and a half miles west of the road twelve miles south of Ship- 
pensville, was built in 1854, 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, 
and makes regularly 1000 tons a year. 

389. Richmond Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned and managed by John Keating, Clarion P.O. Clarion 
county Pennsylvania, on a run north of Clarion Biver and 
three miles east of Stapley Furnace, was built by the owner in 
1846, 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and made in the three 
years preceding 1857 an average of about 550 tons of metal per 
annum out of coal measure ores. 

390. Jefferson Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by S. F. Plumer, and managed by John Haslett, Clarion 
P.O. Clarion county Pennsylvania, on Beaver Creek, three 
miles west of the Clarion Biver, eight miles east of the Alle¬ 
ghany Biver and fourteen west of Clarion, was built in 1838, 
has run irregularly and w T ill be abandoned for want of timber, 
is 8 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in 1856 
about 600 tons of forge metal out of fossil (limestone) and bog 
ores from the coal measures one hundred feet above the furnace 
on the hill side three miles to the south. 

391. Prospect Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Moore, Painter & Co. and managed by ¥m. Moore, 
Clarion P.O. Clarion county Pennsylvania, on Cherry Bun, at 
the Callensburg—Catfish Furnace road crossing, one mile south 
of Callensburg, two miles south of Clarion Biver and six from 
the Alleghany Biver, was built in 1845, 8 feet across the bosh 
by 30 high, and made in thirty-nine and a quarter weeks of 
1856 1,450 tons of mill iron out of blue coal measure limestone 
ore from many banks within three and a half miles round. 




l 


100 TABLE H.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

392. Eagle Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Bey* 
nolds and Kribbs, and managed by George Kribbs, Clarion 
P.O. Clarion county Pennsylvania, is situated on Canoe Creek, 
one mile north from Clarion Biver, ten miles east of Alleghany 
Biver, eight miles south of Bellefont and Erie Pike, ten miles 
west of Clarion and sixty-five northeast of Pittsburg. It was 
built in 1846, 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and makes 700 
or 800 tons per annum out of the soft brown hematite outcrop 
of the buhrstone ore of the lower coal measures. 

393. Tippecanoe Steam and Water Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 

by King and Maxwell, situated in Clarion county Pennsylvania, on Canoe Creek, 
one mile above Eagle Furnace, was built in 1844 by Black & Maxwell, and run by 
the present owners until 1851, when it was abandoned. 

394. Beaver Steam and Water Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Long, Blackstone & Co. on Deer Point Creek, two and a fourth miles 
below Shippen Furnace and five miles south of Shippenville, was built in 1885 and 
abandoned in 1854. It was 9 feet across the bosh by 83 feet high, and had made 
as high as 1,500 tons in a year. The last blast was hot. 

395. Buchanan Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by F. G. Crary of Kit¬ 
tanning Armstrong county, and standing, now dismantled (since April, 1856), four 
miles west of Sligo Furnace, No. 396, on the Clarion River near Callensburg, Clarion 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1844, 8 by 30, and averaged 1,200 tons a year of 
iron out of coal measure ores. Its timber is exhausted. 

396. Sligo Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Lyon, Shorb & Co. of Pittsburg, and situated on Licking 
Creek in Piney township, three miles southwest of Curlsville 
and ten miles south of Clarion county Pennsylvania, was 
built in 1845, is 9 feet wide across the bosh by 32 feet high, 
and made in forty-three weeks of 1856 1,998 tons of rolling mill 
iron out of argillaceous carbonate ores of the coal measures 
close by. 

397. Madison Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Lyon, Shorb & Co. of Pittsburg, like the last, and 
situated on Piney Creek in Piney township, six miles southwest 
of Clarion Pennsylvania, was built in 1836, 9 feet wide across 
the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in forty-five weeks of 1856 
2,140 tons of mill metal out of coal measure carbonate ores from 
mines three or four miles around. 

398. Martha (Polk) Steam Cold-Blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Lyon 
Shorb & Co. like the last, stands dismantled and abandoned, six miles south of 
Clarion, on the K'ttanning-Clarion Road four miles north of Curlsville. It was 

H 




CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA. 101 

built in 1S45 9 x SO, and made in 1854 1,260 tons out of the buhrstone ore of the 
Lower Coal measures. Its timber is exhausted. 

399. Washington Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

five miles south of Clarion, owned by Lanier & Co. of New 
York city, stands on the northwest side of Piney Creek, one and 
a half mile east of the Kittanning road, bnilt in 1846 8-J feet 
wide by 32 feet high inside, it stopped in the spring of 1855 
having made 706 tons that year out of red limestone (buhrstone) 
hematite coal measure ore mined near by. 

400. Monroe Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, six miles 
south of Clarion, owned by W. B. Fetzer & Co. stands on 
Piney Creek in Clarion county Pennsylvania at the crossing of 
the Clarion-Greensville-Kittanning road, and was built in 1845 

8 by 30 feet inside, and made in eighteen weeks of 1855 393-J 
tons of metal out of coal measure ores. 

401. Limestone Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, eight miles southeast of 
Clarion, owned by J. Painter and G. P. Smith, stands on Piney Creek in Clarion 
county Pennsylvania. It was built in 1845 8 feet wide across the bosh, and was 
abandoned in 1853. 

402. Bhippensville Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, four 
miles west of Clarion, owned by Eichard Sliippen and Jacob 
Black, managed .by Eobert Montgomery of Shippensville, 
Clarion county Pennsylvania, stands on the forks of Deer and 
Paint Creeks, one mile south of Shippensville ; was built in 1832 

9 feet wide across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in forty- 
three weeks of 1856 1,229 tons of mill metal out of buhrstone 
coal measure carbonate ores mined near the furnace. 

403. Mary Ann Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, three miles west of Clarion, 
owned by J. and A. Black and standing one mile east of Shippensville on Paint 
Creek at the Clarion and Franklin Pike crossing, was built in 1844, 8 feet across 
the bosh, and abandoned in 1851. 

404. Deer-Creek Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, four and a half miles west 
of Clarion, owned by Dr. Mease & Co. and situated half a mile west of Shippens¬ 
ville where the Clarion and Franklin Pike crosses Deer Creek, was built the same 
year, of the same size and abandoned at the same time as the last. 

405. Elk Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, five and a half miles west of Clarion, 
last leased by Kehl & Call, stands also on Deer Creek, one mile higher up than the 
last, was built in 1842, 7 by 22, and abandoned in the fall of 1855 for want of 
ore and fuel, having made about 400 tons per annum, out of buhrstone ore. 

* 

406. Clarion Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, one and a quarter miles north 
west of p larion, owned by Nelson Hetherington of Clarion, stands on the Clarion 

H 




V 


102 TABLE H.—CHAECOAL FUENACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


River, was built in 1848 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and has been aban¬ 
doned for want of ore, timber being abundant, since 1850. 

407. Lucinda Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, eight miles 
north of Clarion, owned by Buchanan & Reynolds, leased by 
Reynolds & Evans, managed by C. A. Rankin, Clarion county 
Pennsylvania, and situated on Paint Creek, was built in 1833, 
8 feet across the bosh by 30 feet high and made in thirty-one 
'weeks of 1856 995 tons of foundry metal, out of coal measure 
buhrstone ores mined within five miles all round. Timber is 
getting scarce, and the furnace wfill be abandoned this year. 

408. Helen Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, three miles 
east from the last, owned and managed by Samuel Wilson and 
David McKim, of Strattonville, Clarion county Pennsylvania,' 
and situated between the Little Toby and the Clarion Rivers, 
eight miles due north from Clarion on the road to Scotchhill, 
was built in 1845 8 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and 
made in twenty-six w T eeks of 1856 756 tons of iron out of buhr¬ 
stone coal measure ore, mined back of the tunnel head. 

409. Corsica, formerly Mount Pleasant Steam Char¬ 
coal Furnace, seven miles east-northeast of Clarion, owned and 
managed by John P. Brown and situated on a run two miles 
north of Roseburg and half a mile southeast of the Clarion 
River, was built in 1847 8 feet wide across the bosh by 30 
high and made about 500 tons per annum out of burhstone ore 
close by. 

410. Forest Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace in the 

northeast corner of Yenango county, owned and managed by 
William Cross & Son, and situated on Little Hickory Run one 
mile east of the Alleghany River and six miles from the Tionista 
Post-office, was built in 1853 8 feet across the bosh by 32 feet 
high, and makes 450 tons per annum. 

411. Licking Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace in Venango county ten miles 
north of Clarion and four miles west of Tylersburg, was built in 1845 7$- by 30 
feet inside and abandoned in 1856. It used to make about 400 tons per annum. 

412. Hemlock Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, in 

Yenango county Pennsylvania, twelve miles northwest of Clarion 
and two of Freiburg or the old Cobb settlement, owned by F. and 
W- M. Faber of Pittsburg; was built by McGuire & Fetzer 

H 


% 


charcoal Furnaces in northwest Pennsylvania. 103 


in 1845 7^x30 inside and made in forty weeks of 1856 about 910 
tons of metal, out of lower coal measure ores. 

413. Clinton Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace in 

Venango county fourteen miles northwest of Clarion, owned by 
S. F. Plumer of Franklin, managed by William Holliss and 
situated on Hemlock creek eight miles east of the Alleghany 
Fiver, was built in 1841 9-J feet wide across the bosh by 33 
feet high, and made in forty-three weeks of 1856 1,620 tons of 
forge metal, out of fossil buhrstone fossil limestone lower coal 
measure ore, mined two miles south of the furnace. 

414. President Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace in Ve¬ 
nango county sixteen miles northwest of Clarion, owned by 
Arnold Plumer of Franklin, and situated on Hemlock run be¬ 
tween Cobb settlement and the Alleghany Fiver. Built in 
1847 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high and standing idle seve¬ 
ral years it began again in 1857 to make fourteen tons a week 
of foundry iron out of bog ore. 

415. Clay Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and managed by Edmund 
Evans of Franklin and situated on Horse Creek ten miles east of Franklin Ve« 
nango county Pennsylvania, was built in 1832 7 k feet across the bosh by 30 
high, and made about 500 tons per annum out of lower coal measure ores until 
1856, since when it has been abandoned. 

• 

416. Vanburen Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Uhlman & Evans 
and situated on the river two miles southeast of Franklin Venango county Penn¬ 
sylvania, was built in 1832 7 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and made in 
1854- 300 tons of foundry iron out of bog ore, since when it has stood abandoned, 
but its cinder pile will be worked over at some future time. 

417. Glen Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, built by and called commonly after 
Mr. Porterfield, now owned by Charles Sliippen of Stapley Furnace and situated on 
the.river twenty miles below Franklin in Venango county Pennsylvania, was aban¬ 
doned in 1851 or 1852. 

418. Rockland Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by E. W. & H. M. Davis, Fockland P.O. Venango 
county Pennsylvania, managed by H. M. Davis and situated on 
the east bank of the Alleghany river five miles below the last 
and opposite the Falls, was built in 1832 8 feet across the bosh 
by 30 high and made in 1856 perhaps 800 tons out of limestone 
(buhrstone) coal measure ore. 

419. Bullion Run Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 

H 



104 TABLE n.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN FENNSYLVANIA. 


and managed by William Cross & Son, Clintonville P.0 Ve¬ 
nango county Pennsylvania, and situated on a branch of Scrub- 
grass creek, one mile west of the Alleghany river, and fifteen 
miles south of Franklin, was built in 1843 8 feet across the 
bosh by 30 high and made about 250 tons a year out of hard 
kidney ore from the coal measures around. It worked up its 
cinder-pile in 1857. 

420. Jane Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by William Cross & Son like the last, and situated #n 
Scrubgrass creek, near Clintonville, was built in 1838 8 feet 
across the bosh by 30 feet in height and has made regularly 
each half-year blast about 500 tons. 

421. Slab Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Wat- 
tenan, Larimer & Co. and situated on East Sandy creek, three 
miles west of the Alleghany river and six miles southwest of 
Franklin, was built in 1834, 7 feet across the bosh by 30 high, 
and made in 1854 352 tons of metal out of flag and bog ores 
belonging to the coal measures. It was abandoned in 1855 but 
has gone into blast again. 

422. Sandy Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace eight miles 
west-southwest of Franklin Venango county Pennsylvania, 
owned by C. M. Peed of Erie, stands on South Sandy creek 
two miles north of the Franklin-Pittsburg road and 3 miles 
south of the Franklin-Mercer road. It was built about 1838 8 
feet wide by 33 feet high inside and made in half of 1855 400 
tons of mill iron, out of coal measure fossil limestone ores within 
four miles to the southwest. 

423. Reymilton Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace ten miles 
west-soutliwest of Franklin in Venango county Pennsylvania, 
owned by A. W. Raymond of Brady’s Bend, and situated on 
Sandy creek six miles below the lake and half a mile north of 
the Franklin-Mercer State road, was built in 1843, 8 by 30 feet 
inside, and made in thirty-eight weeks of 1854 about 800 tons 
of iron out of coal measure ores frcm the south side of Sandy. 

424. Orleans Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace five miles northwest of Franklin 
in Venango county Pennsylvania, owned by A.'W. Raymond like the last, and situ- 

H 


i 


I 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA. 105 


ated on Sugar creek, two miles above French creek, was built in 1845 and expe¬ 
rimented with until 1852 when it was abandoned. Its last size was 9 by 2*7 

425. Venango Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, fifteen miles northeast of 
Franklin in Venango County Pennsylvania, owned by John Anderson of Pittsburg 
and situated on Oil Creek near Dempsey town, was built in 1830, 8 by 30 feet inside, 
but has been abandoned many years. 

426. Valley Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, eight miles northwest of Frank¬ 
lin Venango County Pennsylvania, stands a mere ruin on French creek and in sight 
of the Waterford & Susquehanna as it used to be called—the Franklin and Mead- 
ville turnpike—was built and abandoned many years ago. 

427. Millcreek Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace in Venango county, owned by 
Charles Shippen of Shippensville in Clarion county, was built in 1835 and aban¬ 
doned. 

428. Webster Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace in Venango county, owned by 
Dempsey & Wick, was built in 1839 8£ feet across the bosh by 30 high, made in 
1849 500 tons and was then abandoned. 

429. Texas Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace in Venango county/owned by Mr. 
Stannard, was built in 1844, 8-J feet across the bosh, and was abandoned before 
1846. 

430. Union Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Judge McCalmont of 
Franklin in Venango county, was built in 1844, 8 feet bosh, made in 1849 150 tons 
and was then abandoned. 

431. Victoria Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Ritchie & Reynolds 
of Franklin Venango county Pennsylvania, was built in 1844, 8£ feet bosh, made in 
1849 200 tons and was then abandoned. 

432. Northbend Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by John W. Hick¬ 
man of Franklin Venango county, was built in 1844, 8s feet bosh, and abandoned 
before 1849. 

433. Jackson Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Robinson & Co. Cass 
P.O. Venango county Pennsylvania, was built in 1835, 8i feet bosh, made in 1849 
310 tons and was then abandoned. 

434. Liberty Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace was built by Lowry & Co. of 
Meadville Sugar Creek P.O. Crawford county Pennsylvania, in 1842, 7 feet across 
the bosh, was abandoned in 1849 and stands in ruins on the north side of French 
Creek and 'the turnpike. 

435. Erie Cold-bla 3 t Charcoal Furnace, owned by Charles M. Reed of Erie, 
Pennsylvania, was built in 1842, made in 1849 300 tons and was abandoned. 

436. Annandale Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Charles M. Reed of 
Erie, and situated on Sandy Creek above Reymilton Furnace 42S, twenty miles 
northeast of Mercer, Mercer county Pennsylvania, was built in 1843, 7 feet across 
the bosh by 27 highland abandoned before 1849. 


H 


106 TABLE H.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 


437. Sandy Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, No. 2, was built three years after the 
last, near it but of larger size, is owned by the same party and was abandoned at 
the same time. 

438. Harry-of-the-West Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
James Irwin of Bellefonte in Centre county Pennsylvania, and situated in Mercer 
county on the Little Chenango river, two miles west of Shakleyville, was built in 
1848 9 feet across the bosh by 40 high, made in 1849 500 tons, and was abandoned 
and dismantled about 1852. 

439. Mineral-Ridge Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace (once called Eliza), 
owned by Ward & Co. Milestown, Mercer county Pennsylvania, on a small stream 
three miles from Shakelyville and a mile from Harry-of-the-West Furnace 438, 
fifteen miles north of Mercer, was built in 1846, and received a hot-blast in 1856 ; 
is SJ across the bosh by 34 feet high, made about 500 or 600 tons a year, and was 
abandoned in the spring of 1856. 

440. Mary Ann Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, owned by Joseph Kis- 
sock of Newcastle and R. Robinson of Pittsburg, stands on the Shenango river 
opposite to Greenville and fifteen miles northwest of Mercer in Mercer county Penn¬ 
sylvania. Built in 1846, 10 feet across the bosh by 50 high, and making 600 tons a 
year, out of the limestone lower coal measure ores of the neighborhood, it was aban¬ 
doned January, 1855. 

441. Harriet or Shenango Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, owned by 

Charles M. Reed of Erie, stands a few rods distant from the last described, was built 
the same year, 11| feet wide across the bosh by 45 feet high, and is said to have 
made in 1854 2,000 tons; but it was soon abandoned. 

442. Hamburg Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, owned by John B. 
Warder, stands on the Chenango river opposite to Hamburg Mercer county Penn¬ 
sylvania, ten miles northwest of Mercer. Built the same year with the three last 
described, in 1846, 9 feet across the bosh by 40 high, it made in 1855 perhaps 
1,200 tons and was dismantled and entirely abandoned the same year. Its coal was 
mined three miles up the canal and its (buhrstone) ore came up from Newcastle. 

443. Bigbend or Shenango Steam and Water Hot-blast Charcoal Coke 
and Raw-coal Furnace, owned by David Hogeland, stands near the Shenango 
river on the Lackawannock run five miles northwest of Mercer, Mercer countv 
Pennsylvania; was built in 1845 7J feet across the bosh by 36 feet high, and made 
in 1854 1,700 tons of forge iron out of hard limestone coal measure ore mixed with 
some from Lake Champlain, after which it was dismantled and entirely abandoned. 

444. Oregon Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by W. W. Wallace 
of Pittsburg, stands on the Sharon-Mercer road three miles west of Mercer; was 
built in 1845, 8 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high and has made little or no iron 
since 1847. The stack was well made and the engine powerful. 

445. Clay Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, nine 
miles west of Mercer on Anderson’s run, one mile south of the 
canal and three miles east of Clarksville, was built in 1845 10 
feet across the bosh by 39 feet high, and made in half of 1856 

H 


RAW COAL FURNACES IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


107 


902 tons of iron out of coal measure carbonate and bog ores two 
miles south. 

446. Sharpsburg or Blanche Steam Hot-blast Raw- 
coal Furnace, owned by James Pierce, stands on the Shenango 
river in Sharpsville Mercer county Pennsylvania, thirteen 
miles west of Mercer. Built in 1847 11 feet across the bosh by 
50 high, it made in forty weeks of 1854 perhaps 1,600 tons of 
iron out of hard limestone Newcastle coal measure mixed with 
Lake Superior ores, and was finally stopped in 1855. 

447. Sharon Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, 

owned by James B. Curtis, managed by J. U. Price, and 
situated on the Chenango river, just above the village of 
Sharon, fifteen miles west of Sharon, in Mercer county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, was built in 1846 and repaired and enlarged in 1857 to 
10J- feet width across the bosh by 40 feet in height, and made 
in 1855 about 1,800 tons of mill iron out of hard limestone New¬ 
castle lower coal measure ores. 

448. Middlesex Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, 

on Chenango river and Erie-Extension canal, five miles south 
of the Sharon Furnace last described, twelve miles west of 
Mercer, fifteen north of Newcastle and six miles east of Hub¬ 
bard in Ohio, was built in 1845 10 feet wide across the bosh by 
38 feet high, and in forty-two weeks of 1856 made 1,762 tons of 
iron out of the hematized outcrop of the blue fossiliferous lime¬ 
stone (buhrstone) carbonate ore of the lower coal measures from 
the mouth of the Conneconessing creek in Lawrence county 
thirty miles towards the south mixed with hard blue carbonate 
ores of the neighborhood. 

449. Iron-city Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by W. W. Wal¬ 
lace of Pittsburg and situated in Mercer county Pennsylvania, four miles west- 
southwest of Mercer, on the Mercer and West Middlesex road, was built in 1846, is 
8J feet wide across the bosh by 34 feet high, and made from 600 to 700 tons per 
annum until December, 1855, since when it has stood idle. 

450. Mazeppa Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by John J. Spearman & Co. Mazeppa P.O. Mercer 
county Pennsylvania, and situated two miles southeast of Mer¬ 
cer, and three hundred yards east of the Mercer-Butler turn¬ 
pike, was built in 1846, is 9 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and 
made in thirty-two weeks of 1854 815 tons of iron out of buhr- 

H 


108 TABLE H. — RAW COAL FURNACES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

stone fossiliferous blue carbonate from the Lower coal measures 
mined close by. 

451. Springfield Hot-blast Charcoal and Green-wood 
Furnace, owned by Pardon Sennett of Erie, managed by 
William S. Scollard, Springfield P.O. Mercer county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, and situated seven miles south-southeast of Mercer, on a 
small run half a mile from Leesbury on the Mercer-LIarmony- 
Pittsburg road, was built in 1837, is 9 feet across the bosh by 
35 feet high, and has made about 500 tons of iron per annum 
out of Kidney ore of the lower coal measures, the deficiency of 
which occasions it to be now abandoned. 

452. Tremont or New Wilmington Steam Hot-blast 
Raw-coal Furnace, owned by Crawford & Co. of New Cas¬ 
tle Lawrence county Pennsylvania, and situated ten miles south- 
southwest of Mercer, on a run half a mile south of the village 
and a mile above Little Neshannoc creek, was built in 1848, is 
lfi§- feet across the bosh by 33 feet high and made in twenty- 
one weeks of 1856 740 tons of charcoal iron out of blue lime¬ 
stone carbonate of the coal measures. It is now running 
successfully on raw coal. 

453. Willieroy Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Stewart & Foltz Hardinsburg P.O. Lawrence county Pennsyl¬ 
vania and situated ten miles east of Newcastle, on Slippery 
rock creek at the Northwestern railroad location line where the 
Newcastle-Butler road crosses, four miles southwest of Har- 
landsburg, four miles north of Portersville, was built in 1854, is 
10 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in twenty-two 
weeks of 1856 600 tons of foundry metal out of the brown 
hematite ore on the fossiliferous limestone of the lower coal 
measures mined within a mile or two all round. 

454. Sophia Steam Hot-blast Coke and Raw-coal 
Furnace or Orizaba Iron-works, owned by Knapp, Wil¬ 
kins & Co. of Pittsburg, managed by J. Crowther, Newcastle 
P.O. Lawrence county Pennsylvania, and situated in the town 
of Newcastle on the same island with the rolling mill between 
the canal and the Neshannoc, two miles above the junction of 
the two canals, was built in 1853, 13^- feet across the bosh by 45 
feet high, and made in 1854 4,‘ 7 84 tons of forge metal out of 
H 


RAW COAL FURNACES IN NORTHERN OniO. 


109 


mixed rolling mill cinder and native coal measure carbonate 
ores smelted with coke and raw coal mixed. 

455. Martha Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, formerly owned by Power & 
Sons, Newcastle P.O. Lawrence county Pennsylvania and situated in the town of 
Newcastle, was built in 1844, 8 feet across the bosh by 86 feet high, made in 1849 
200 tons and is abandoned. 

456. Wampum-run Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Childs, Richardson and others of Pittsburg, 
managed by Mr. Steward, Wampun run P.O. Lawrence county 
Pennsylvania, and situated seven miles below Newcastle, on 
the west side of the Beaver river, four miles above the mouth 
of the Coneconessing and 12 miles north of Brighton railroad 
station, was built in 1857, 14 feet across the bosh by 45 feet 
high, and made in sixteen weeks of 1857 about 1,200 tons of 
metal out of the buhrstone ore smelted with Middlesex coal. 

457. Mahoning Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, 

owned by Alexander & John M. Crawford, managed by Ben- 
jamin Crowther, Lowell P.O. Mahoning county Ohio, and 
situated on the south bank of the Mahoning river and canal 
opposite to Lowell ten miles west of Newcastle and sixty-five 
from Pittsburg, was built in 1845, 12 feet across the bosh by 45 
feet high, and made in 46 weeks of 1857 3,311 tons of mill iron 
out of lower coal measure carbonate ore mixed with Lake 
Superior magnetic ore and rolling-mill cinder, smelted with 
Mount Nebo or Briar-hill coal. 

458. Poland Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Daniel Eaton and situ¬ 
ated in Trumbull county Ohio six miles southeast of Youngstown, was built and 
twice rebuilt in 1809, 1816 and 1837, 7 feet across the bosh by about 30 high, and 
was abandoned after making two blasts. 

45 9, Falcon Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace owned 
and managed by Mr. Howard, Youngstown P.O. Mahoning 
county Ohio and situated on the river flat, north bank, in 
Youngstown, between the river and canal, wuis built in 1856,14 
feet across the bosh by 47 high, and made in half of 1856 per¬ 
haps 1,200 tons of forge metal out of coal measure carbonate, 
Lake Superior magnetic ore and rolling-mill cinders mixed. 

460. Phoenix Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace 

owned by Lemuel Crawford of Cleveland, managed by N. M. 
Jones of Youngstown Mahoning county Ohio and situated two 

H 


110 TABLE n.—RAW COAL FURNACES IN NORTHERN OHIO. 

t 

hundred yards from Falcon Furnace last described and beside 
the canal, was built in 1854, 12 feet across the bosh by 47 high, 
and made in 1856 perhaps 3,000 tons of iron for the Rilestown 
rolling mill, out of similar mixed stock as Falcon Furnace last 
described. 

461. Eagle or Philpot Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Fur- 

nace, owned by Crawford & Murray, managed by T. Polluck, 
Youngstown P.O. Mahoning county Ohio, and situated two 
miles northwest of Youngstown on the south side of the rail¬ 
road, and north side of the canal, was built in 1854, 12 feet 
across the bosh by 49 feet high, and made in 1857 about 3,284 
tons of rolling-mill iron out of black band from the neighboring 
coal measures and Canada magnetic ores mixed, smelted with 
Briar-hill vein coal. 

462. Briar-hill Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, 

owned by David Tod, managed by W. Richards Briar-hill 
P.O. Mahoning county Ohio, and situated on the railroad and 
canal three hundred yards west of Eagle Furnace last described, 
was built in 1847, 14 feet wide across the bosh by 41 feet high, 
and made in 1857 3,161 tons of mill iron out of black band from 
the lower coal measures seven miles southwest, rock and kidney 
carbonate ores, Canada magnetic and rolling-mill cinder. 

463. Meander Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace 

owned by Smith, Porter & Co. managed by Mr. Fuller, Orange 
P.O. Mahoning county Ohio, and situated nine miles southwest 
of Youngstown railroad station, on Meander Creek, four miles 
above its junction with Mahoning river, in Austin town, was 
built in 1857, 12 feet across the bosh by 38 feet high, and in 
January 1858 was making 15 to 16 tons of iron per day. 

464. Mill Creek Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, owned last by David Grier of 
Pittsburg and situated in Mahoning county Ohio, three miles north of Youngstown 
railroad station, on Mill creek, two miles north of its junction with the Mahoning 
river, was built in 1835 9 feet across the bosh by about 30 high, and made perhaps 
100 tons in 1855, since when it has been abandoned. 

465. Musquito Creek Steam and Water Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Warren Heaton’s heirs, leased last by Robison & Battels Niles- 
town Trumbull county Ohio, and situated near the railroad, in Nilestown, ten miles 
above Youngstown on and near the mouth of Musquito creek, was built about 1812 
about 9 by 32, and made in 1856 about 600 tons of iron out of bog ore and blue 
carbonate mixed. Once coke was tried and failed. It is abandoned. 

H 


CIIARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHERN OHIO. 


Ill 


465. Volcano Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, 

owned by the Volcano Iron Company, Charles A. Crandell man¬ 
ager, and situated on the canal south of the village and oppo¬ 
site the railroad depot Massillon, Stark county Ohio, was built 
in 1855, 14 feet across the bosh by 45 feet high, and made in 
forty-eight weeks of 1856 4,755 tons of foundry iron out of clay 
shale kidney coal measure ores mixed with ores from Lake 
Superior, smelted with coal from 2 to 11 miles west. 

467. Massillon Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, 

owned by the Massillon Iron Company, J. E. McLain president, 
managed by William Polluck, Massillon, Stark county Ohio, and 
situated one hundred yards south of Volcano Furnace last de¬ 
scribed, was built in 1854 14 feet across the bosh by 41J feet 
high, and made in twenty-six weeks of 1857 3,455 tons of iron 
like the furnace last described. 

467.1. Coneaut Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, Ashtabula county Ohio, was 
built in 1832, about feet in the bosh by 30 high, and ran several years on bog 
ore and was then abandoned. 

# 

467.2. Arcole Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnaces in Madison 
township Lake (late Geauga) county Ohio. The old stack was built in 1825 by Root 
& Wheeler, and the new one by Wilkeson & Co. in 1832. This company owned both 
stacks from 1830, and ran them regularly until 1851, when they were sold to the 
Geauga Iron Company, and have stood idle ever since. Both stacks are 9 feet in 
the bosh by 30 feet high, and made soft iron, thirty (30) tons a week, each, out of 
bog iron. 

467.3. Clyde Charcoal Furnace in Madison Lake county Ohio, was built in 
1832 and abandoned in 1838. 

467.4. Geauga Steam and Water Hot-blast Furnace 

one mile north of Paineville Lake county Ohio, on Grand river, 
was built in 1824 (?) by an incorporated company and has been 
run ever since, formerly on bog ore alone, but now on bog ore 
mixed with Lake Superior. Production 30 to 35 tons per 
week. 

467.5. Concord Charcoal Furnace, south of Painville in Concord, Lake 
county Ohio, was built in 1825 and burned down and abandoned some years since, 
30 tons a week was its production. 

467.6. Railroad Charcoal Furnace in Perry Geauga county Ohio, was built 
about 1825 by Thorndike & Drury of Boston, and has stood idle since 1838. 

467.7. Middleburgh Charcoal Furnace, at Middleburgh Cuyahoga county 
Ohio, was built about 1836, was never very successful and is now abandoned. 

467.8. Dover Charcoal Furnace, at Dover Loraine county Ohio, was built in 
1834 and run on bog ore for a number of years and is now out of repair and'aban¬ 
doned. 


H 


112 TABLE II.-CHARCOAL FURN ACES IN NORTHERN OHIO. 


467.9. Elyria Charcoal Furnace, at Elyria Loraine county Ohio, was built 
in 1832 and was run with indifferent success on bog ore for a number of years and 
was then abandoned. 

468. Vermillion Charcoal Furnace, at Florence Huron county Ohio, was 
built in 1834 by the Geauga Iron Company and sold in 1835 to Wilkeson & Co. who 
ran it with success on bog ore until within a year or two. It is now standing still. 

468.1. Tilden’s Charcoal Furnace in Yermillion Huron 
county, was built about 1854 and is now owned by Dr. Tilden 
of Cleveland; it uses Lake Superior ore. 

468.2. Tuscarawas Steam Charcoal Furnace, in Fairfield Tuscarawas 
county, was built about 1830 by Christmas Hazlett & Co. and sold to the Zoar Com¬ 
munity. It ran until 1846, and when the timber failed blew out. Coal and ore 
abound around it. 

468.3. Zoar Charcoal Furnace, in Zoar Tuscarawas county Ohio, was built 
by the Zoar Community and ran many years until charcoal failed. Ore and bitumi¬ 
nous coal are abundant near it. 

468.4. Middlebury Charcoal Furnace, in Middlebury Summit county 
Ohio, and 

468.5. Tallmadge Charcoal Furnace in Tallmadge Summit county Ohio, 
were old works in 1830, smelting the coal measure carbonate ores with charcoal, 
and both went out of blast about 183 

468.6. An old Furnace still stands in Hartford, Mahoning county Ohio. 

469. Akron Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Tod, Rhodes and others 
and situated on the Tuscarawas, twenty miles above Massillon opposite Rawson’s 
Mill in Summit county Ohio, was built before 1840 10 feet across the bosh by 36 
high, and was dismantled in 1850 having made the year before perhaps 1,000 tons. 

470. Dover Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, twenty miles south of 
Massillon, at Dover in Tuscarawas county Ohio, owned formerly by the Tuscarawas 
Iron Company and managed by Mr. J. E. Hicks, is 12 feet across the bosh by 45 
feet high, and made in 1856 perhaps 900 tons of iron out of the same ores as those 
used at Massillon (466 and 467). It is probably abandoned. 

471. Dresden Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, sixteen miles north of Zanes¬ 
ville in Muskingum county Ohio, owned by Spaulding & Co. and situated near 
Hopewell Falls of Licking river, was built about 1847 10 feet across the bosh bv 
45 feet high and made a good deal of iron, but was abandoned in 1850. 

472. Dillon’s Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, four miles northwest of Zanes¬ 
ville in Muskingum county Ohio, owned by Mr. Buckingham of Zanesville, and 
situated with a forge on the Columbus railroad at the Falls of Licking, was built 
thirty or forty years ago, 6 by 30 feet inside, and afterwards enlarged to about the 
same size as Dresden last described. It made perhaps 1,000 tons of forge iron per 
annum and was not abandoned until 1850 or later. 

" 473. Mary Ann Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, ten miles northeast of 
Newark in Licking county Ohio, owned by Dille B. Moore, and situated on Rock 
Fork of Licking, was built in 1816 and remodelled to a steam furnace about 1847. 
She made perhaps 1,000 tons per annum out of pot and rock ores from the outcrop 

H 


113 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHERN OHIO. 

of the lower coal measures, but no limestone ore. It is said to have become lately 
a stone coal furnace. 

474. Logan Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by tlie Logan Furnace Company, Roberts & Co. managed by 
F. Case, Logan P.O. Hocking county Ohio, and situated on tlie 
bank of the Hocking canal just outside the village of Logan to 
the northwest and in Falls township, was built in 1855 9 feet 
across the bosh by 32 feet high, and made in thirty weeks of 
1856 about 1,600 tons of machine iron from horizontal coal- 
measure carbonate ores half a mile and more around the 
furnace. 

475. Hocking Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Flocking Iron Company, Peter Haydn of Colum¬ 
bus president, W. M. Moore secretary, managed by W. H. 
Haydn, Hocking county Ohio, and situated on the canal, seven 
miles southeast of the Logan railroad station, in Green township, 
was built in 1852 9 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high, and 
made in twenty-one weeks of 1857 about 1,000 tons of iron from 
horizontal coal-measure block and limestone carbonate orebeds 
round the neighborhood. Will probably use coke and raw-coal 
hereafter. 

476. Fivemile Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Fivemile Furnace Company, P. Adcock presi¬ 
dent, Webster & Co. lessees, Wm. M. Bowen manager, Hocking 
county Ohio, and situated on Fivemile Creek and on the Scioto 
and Hocking Yalley railroad five miles south of Logan station 
and three miles from Hocking Furnace last described, was built 
in 1855 10 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in 
twenty-one weeks of 1856 1,035 tons of foundry iron for Zanes¬ 
ville, Columbus and Cleveland, out of horizontal coal-measure 
carbonate ores, five beds, around. 

477. Bigsand Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by the Bigsand Iron Company, Bartlett, Dannar 
& Co. managed by S. J. Summinger, Athens P.O. Yinton 
county Ohio, and situated on a branch of Big Raccoon creek, 
one and a quarter miles north of the Cincinnati and Marietta 
railroad, in township No. 11, R. 16, eleven miles east of McAr¬ 
thur station and fourteen west of Athens, was built in 1854 10£ 
feet across the bosh by 36 feet high, and made in thirty weeks 

8 H 



114 TABLE H.—RAW-COAL FURNACES IN SOUTHERN OHIO. 

of 1856 about 1,800 tons of soft grey iron out of horizontal coal 
measure limestone ore mined all round. 

478. Zaleski Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, 

owned by the Zaleski Iron Company, H. B. Robson financial 
agent, managed by Mr. Walters, Zaleski P.O. Vinton county 
Ohio, and situated half way between Vinton and Bigsand Fur¬ 
naces, a mile from Zaleski station, where the machine shops, 
foundries, rolling mill, etc. are being built, was built in 1858,13 
feet across the bosh by 46 feet high, the first of three stacks, to 
run on raw-coal and limestone, clay and silicious ball ores of the 
horizontal coal measures in the hills close by. 

479. Vinton Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Means, Clark & Co. managed by Cyrus New¬ 
kirk, McArthur P.O. Vinton county Ohio, and situated two 
miles south of the railroad station, seven miles northeast of 
Hambden station, was built in 1854 11 feet across the bosh by 
32j- feet high and made in forty-seven weeks of 1857 about 
3,100 tons of foundry iron out of coal-measure limestone ore ex¬ 
clusively, abundant in the neighborhood. 

480. Hambden Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Damarin, Tarr & Co. managed by McKean, 
Reed’s Mills P.O. Vinton county Ohio, and situated more than 
a mile southeast of Hambden village railroad station, was built 
in 1854, 11 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in 
1857 2,157 tons of hot and cold-blast iron out of coal measure 
limestone and block ores mixed. 

481. Eagle Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Bentley, Benner, Bundy and others, managed by William 
B. Dennis, Reed’s Mills P.O. Vinton county Ohio, and situated 
on the Hambden-Pomeroy main road, between the waters of 
Big and Little Raccoon creeks, six miles southeast from Hamb¬ 
den railroad station, was built in 1854 11 feet bosh, and made 
in twenty-eight weeks of 1856 1,725 tons of iron out of coal 
measure limestone ores all round the furnace. 

482. Cincinnati Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

■owned by the Cincinnati Furnace Company, Westfall, Dungan 
and Stewart, managed by J. B. Royer, Jackson P.O. Jackson 
county Ohio, and situated on Pigeon creek and Cincinnati and 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHERN OHIO. 


115 


Marietta railroad six miles west of Hambden station and 
twenty-five miles east of Chilicothe, was built in 1854 13 feet 
in the bosh by 40 high, and made in thirty-two weeks of 1856 
2,560 tons of iron out of coal-measure block and limestone ores 
mixed, from the hills around and lately from the mines at Yin- 
ton Furnace. 

483. Iron Valley Steam Cold and Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by the Iron Yalley Furnace Company, Thomp¬ 
son, Lasley & Co. managed by S. Churchill, Berlin P.O. Jack- 
son county Ohio, and situated on Mulligy creek six miles 
southeast of Hambden village railroad station and seven east of 
Berlin station, was built in 1853 11 feet in the bosh by 38 feet 
high and made in 1856 about 2,000 tons of iron out of limestone 
ore mixed with a little block ore, from the surrounding coal 
measures. 

484. Latrobe Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Bundy, Austin & Co. managed by Drew Bicker, 
Berlin P.O. Jackson county Ohio, and situated two miles south¬ 
east of Berlin station on the Hocking Yalley railroad, was built 
about 1854 10 feet in the bosh by 35 feet high and made in 
forty-four weeks of 1857 2,025 tons of iron out of coal measure 
limestone ore mixed with a little blue ore, from diggings 
around. 

485. Buckeye Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Newkirk, Daniels & Co. Buckeye Furnace 
Company, managed by Warren Murfin, Berlin P.O. Jackson 
county Ohio, and situated five miles south of Iron Yalley Fur¬ 
nace 483, on Little Baccoon creek, six miles east of Berlin 
railway station, was built in 1853, is 11 feet in the bosh by 34 
feet high, and made in forty-two weeks of 1855 1,840 tons of 
iron out of horizontal limestone ore of the surrounding coal 
measures. 

486. Keystone Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by E. B. Greene & Co. of Portsmouth, man¬ 
aged by M. Churchill, Jackson county Ohio, and situated on 
Little Baccoon creek eleven miles east of Jackson railway station, 
was built in 1848 10 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high, and 
made in 1856 2,407 tons of hot and cold-blast iron out of lime¬ 
stone ore from the horizontal coal measures within four miles west. 

H 


116 TABLE H. — CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHERN OniO. 

487. Young America Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Powel, Oakes & Co. managed by Peter Powel, 
Jackson C.H. Jackson county Ohio, and situated on the Hock¬ 
ing Yalley railroad three miles east of Jackson Court-IIouse, 
was built in 1857 13 feet across the bosh by 48 feet high, and 
made 14 tons of iron a day out of block ore from the lower coal 
measures in the hill alongsMe. 

488. Diamond, formerly Saltlick, Steam Hot-blast 
Raw-coal and Charcoal Furnace, owned by Grattan, Hoff¬ 
man & Co. managed by Peter Cowell, Jackson P.O. Jackson 
county Ohio, and situated on Saltlick waters and on the Park¬ 
ersburg, Hillsborough and Cincinnati railroad location line, one 
mile west of Jackson railway station, was built in 1856 12 feet 
in the bosh by 41 -J- feet high, and made in perhaps half of 1856 
perhaps 1,000 tons of iron out of coal measure ore mostly 
brought by railroad from six to ten miles’ distance. 

489. Madison Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Peters, Terry & Co. Mr. Terry agent at 
Portsmouth, managed by Jacob Picker, Jackson county Ohio, 
and situated two and a half miles east of Crossroads Hocking 
valley railway station, was built in 1854 11 feet across the bosh 
by 35 feet high and made in twenty-six weeks of 1857 about 
2,500 tons of iron out of surrounding coal measure ores. 

490. Limestone Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by the Limestone Furnace Company, Hewson, 
Evans & Co. managed by William J. Evans, Oakhill P.O. Jack- 
son county Ohio, and situated two and a half miles east of Oak- 
hill Hocking Yalley railroad station, on Grassy fork of Symme’s 
creek, was built in 1854, 11J feet across the bosh by 39 feet 
high and made in about half of 1856 perhaps 1,800 tons of iron 
out of surrounding horizontal lower coal measure ore. 

491. Jefferson Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Jefferson Furnace Company, managed by George 
W. Baker Oakhill P.O. Jackson county Ohio, and situated one 
and a half miles west of Portland Hocking Yalley railroad 
station on the black fork of Symme’s Creek, was built in 1854 
11 feet across the bosh by 37 feet high, and made in about half 
of 1856 1,565 tons of soft grey iron out of coal measure lime¬ 
stone ores within two miles around. 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHERN OHIO. 


117 


492. Jackson Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Jackson Furnace Company, Davis & Tracy, 
Jackson P.O. Jackson county Ohio, and situated about seven 
miles northwest of Monroe Furnace next to be described, w r as 
built in 1837 9-J- feet across the bosh by 33 feet high and made 
in 1857 about 2,700 tons of iron out of lower coal measure ores. 

493. Monroe Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by McConnell, Bolles & Co. managed by Mr. Gilbert 
Jackson P.O. Jackson county Ohio, and situated quarter of a 
mile north of its Hocking Yalley railroad station, was built in 
1855 12 feet across the bosh by 40 high and made in forty-three 
weeks of 1857 3,700 tons of iron out of limestone ore of the 
surrounding coal measures. 

494. Cambria Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by David Lewis & Co. managed by D. T. Lewis, Oak- 
hill P.O. Jackson county Ohio, and situated one and a half 
miles southeast of its Hocking Yalley railroad station, twenty- 
five miles from Portsmouth, was built in 1854 10j- feet across 
the bosh by 30J feet high and made in 1857 perhaps 1,950 tons 
of iron out of limestone ore and some blue ore of the surround¬ 
ing coal measures. 

495. Gallia Steam Warm-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Bentley, Campbell & Co. managed by Mr. Bentley, 
Gallia P.O. Gallia county Ohio, and situated five miles south of 
its Hocking Yalley railroad station, the same as Cambria, was 
built about 1847 10 feet across the bosh by 30 high and 
made in 1857 2,300 tons of iron out of limestone ore and blue 
ore of the lower coal measures, mixed. 

496. Washington Steam Cold blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by J. Peters & Co. S. McConnell, financial agent, man¬ 
aged by William Colvin, Ironton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, 
and situated two miles south of the same station as the last, and 
three miles south of Monroe Furnace 493, was built in 1852 
11 feet bosh by 34 feet high and made in thirty-seven weeks of 
1857 1,967 tons of iron out of limestone coal measure ores. 

497. Pioneer Steam Hot-blast Raw-coal Furnace, 

owned by Ormsby, Colvin & Heed, managed by William Colvin 
L’onton P.O. Lawrence county, Ohio, and situated in Washing- 

H 



118 TABLE H.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHERN OHIO. 

ton Township, three miles southeast of its Hocking Valley 
railroad station, was built in 1856 about 14 feet in the bosh bj 
perhaps 45 feet high and made in 1857 a little iron out of coal 
measure ores. 

498. Olive Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Campbell, Peters, Bimpson & McGugin, managed by Wil¬ 
liam N. McGugin, Ironton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and 
situated in the southeast corner of Sec. Ho. 34, town 4, R. 18, 
Chilicothe land district and on the railroad nineteen miles 
north of Ironton, was built in 1847 9 feet across the bosh by 36 
feet high and made in thirty three weeks of 1854 1,932 tons of 
grey iron out of hematite ore from the outcrop of some of the 
beds of the lower coal measures. 

499. Buckhorn Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Seeley, Willard & Co. managed by Boudinot Seeley, 
Ironton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and situated one mile west 
of the Ironton railroad fourteen miles north of Ironton, on a 
branch of Pine creek, two miles southwest of Olive Furnace 
last described, was built about in 1836 10 feet in bosh by 36 
feet high and made in half of 1856 1,450 tons of iron out of 
blue carbonate ore of the lower coal measures. 

500. Mountvernon Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Campbell, Ellison & Co. managed by Robert 
Scott, Ironton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and situated two 
miles southeast of Buckhorn Furnace last described, on the 
railroad thirteen miles from Ironton, was built in 1835 10J feet 
bosh by perhaps 36 feet high and made in half of 1855 2,144 
tons of foundry iron out of limestone coal measure ores mined 
close by. 

501. Oakridge Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Stetson, Bishop, Mitchell and Mather, 
managed by O. M. Mitchell, Ironton P.O. Lawrence county 
Ohio, and situated on Elkin’s creek one mile above its junction 
with Symme’s creek, six miles east of the Ironton railroad, 
twelve miles northeast of Ironton, was built in 1856 11 feet 
bosh by 44 feet high and made in 1857 .450 tons of iron out of 
various ores from the middle coal measures. 

502. Centre Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Robert B. Hamilton, managed by S. McGugin, Ironton P.O. 
H . 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHERN OHIO. 


119 


Lawrence county Ohio, and situated two miles west of tlie rail¬ 
road, ten miles north of Ironton, was built in 1838, is 9J- feet 
bosh by 35 feet high and made in 1855 about 2,400 tons of iron 
from lower coal measure ores around. 

503. Lawrence Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Culbertson, Means & Co. managed by J. Culbertson, 
J. E. Clark agent, fronton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and 
situated one mile east of the railroad eight miles north of Iron- 
ton, was built in 1834 10 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high 
and made in 1856 2,434 tons of iron from lower coal measure 
ores around. 

504. Etna Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by J. Ellison, S. W. Dempsey and James Rogers, managed by 
J. Ellison, Ironton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and situated 
two miles east of the railroad, seven miles north of Ironton, on 
the east fork of Pine creek, was built about in 1832 is 10-J feet 
wide across the bosh and made in forty weeks of 1856 2,240 
tons of iron out of brown hematite outcrop ore of the lower coal 
measures. 

505. Vesuvius Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Dempsey & Co. and managed by Washington Boyd, 
Ironton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and situated two miles 
east of the railroad six miles north of Ironton on Storm’s creek 
crossing of the Marion-Portsmouth road, was built about 
1834 10J feet bosh by 31 feet high and made in thirty-seven 
weeks of 1854 2,091 tons of mill iron out of brown hematite 
lower coal measure outcrop ore within two miles. 

506. Pine-Grove Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Hamilton, Peebles & Coles, managed by John F. 
Peebles, Hanging Rock P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and situ¬ 
ated two miles west of the railroad six miles north of Ironton, 
on Sperry’s Fork of Pine creek, five miles from the Ohio river, 
was built in 1828, rebuilt in 1834, again in 1840, 10| feet bosh 
by 34 feet high, and made in thirty-eight weeks of 1854 2,688 
tons of iron out of lower coal measure limestone and block 
ores. 

507. Union Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Sinton & Means, 
managed by J. W. Means Hanging Rock P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and situated 
tkret miles west of Pine Grove Furnace last described, was built in 1826 10 feet in 

H 


120 TABLE H.—CHAECOAL FUEXACES IN SOUTHEEN OHIO. 

the bosh by 35 in height and made in 1854 perhaps 2,000 tons of iron out of lower 
coal measure ores but the furnace must wait for a second growth of timber or 
blow in on coke or coal. 

508. Lagrange Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the Ohio 
Iron and Coal Company, John Campbell president, Ironton P.O. Lawrence county 
Ohio, and situated on the railroad one mile north of Ironton, wa3 built in 1836 10 
feet bosh by 32 feet high and made in 1854 about 1,000 tons of iron out of lower 
coal measure limestone ore mixed with some bloek. The furnace w r as abandoned 
in 1856 for want of timber and must be rebuilt to run on raw coal. 

509. Hecla Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Campbell, McCullough & Co. managed by John 
Wilson, Ironton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and situated 
three miles northeast of Ironton, was built in 1835 10 feet 
across the bosh by 35 feet high and made in about thirty weeks 
of 1857 1,760 tons of iron out of lower coal measure ores. 

510. Ohio Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 

' r. 

Sinton and Means, managed by George B. Sparks, Haverhill 
P.O. Scioto county Ohio, and situated five miles northwest of 
Hanging Pock, on Gennatt’s creek, three miles from the Ohio 
river was built about 1850 with a 10-J feet bosh and made 
in thirty-four weeks of 1856 2,168 tons of iron out of lower coal 
measure outcrop hematite ores from the east. 

511. Howard Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Campbell, Woodrow & Co., managed by H. A. 
Webb, Wlieelersburg P.O. Scioto county Ohio, and situated 
four miles west of Mount Vernon Furnace 500, on Pine creek, 
five miles from the Hocking Valley railroad, twenty east of 
Portsmouth, was built about in 1853 11 feet bosh by 38 feet 
high and made in thirty-seven weeks of 1856 about 2,200 tons 
of iron out of lower coal measure outcrop hematite and lime¬ 
stone fossil ores, mixed with some silicious block. 

512. Clinton Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Gliddon, Crawford & Co. managed by S. S. Gliddon, Iron- 
ton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and situated in Scioto county, 
one mile south of Howard Furnace 511, on Pine or Hale’s creek, 
nine miles south of east from Wheelersburg on the Ohio, was 
built about in 1832, is 10 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high 
and made in forty-two weeks of 1854 2,920 tons of iron out of 
limestone and browm hematite crop ores from the surrounding 
coal measures. 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN SOUTHERN OHIO. 


121 


513. Bloom Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 

by G. S. Williams & Co. Portsmouth P.O. Scioto county 
Ohio, and situated two miles south of its Hocking Yalley rail¬ 
road station twenty miles east of Portsmouth, was built about 
1832 9J feet across the bosh by 35 (?) feet high and made in 
1856 about 1,800 tons of iron out of lower coal measure block 
and limestone ores. 

514. Scioto Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by J. Y. Pobinson & Sons and others, managed by Charles 
Gliddon Portsmouth P.O. Scioto county Ohio, and situated on 
the Scioto and Hocking Yalley railroad fifteen miles from 
Portsmouth, was built about 1830 10 feet across the bosh by 
35 feet high and made in forty-eight weeks of 1854 3,041 tons 
of iron out of lower coal measure outcrop hematite and lime¬ 
stone ores around. 

515. Harrison Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by H. Spellman, S. K. Boss and others, managed by H. 
Spellman, Sciotoville P.O. Scioto county Ohio, and situated 
five miles north of the Sciotoville Hocking Yalley railroad 
station twelve miles east of Portsmouth, was built about 

1853 10J feet bosh by 38 feet high and made in about thirty 
weeks of 1855 about 2,300 tons of iron out of surrounding coal 
measure block and limestone ores. 

516. Franklin Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by John F. and Oran B. Gould, managed by the latter, 
Franklin P.O. Scioto county Ohio, and situated on the road 
from Ironton to Portsmouth, sixteen miles from the latter place 
and half a mile from its river landing, was built in 1826 9J feet 
in the bosh by 28 feet high and made in half of 1856 2,277 tons 
of iron out of lower coal measure outcrop brown hematite and 
limestone ores. 

517. Junior Steam Hot blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Gliddon, Murfin & Co. managed by James Murfin, Junior 
P.O. Scioto county Ohio, and situated two miles east of Franklin 
Furnace last described, on Genatt’s creek, was built in 1828 9J 
feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made in forty weeks of 

1854 3,016^ tons of iron out of lower coal measure block lime¬ 
stone and crop hematite ores. 


* 


i 



122 TABLE H.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN KENTUCKY. 

518. Empire Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Gliddon, Murfin & Co. managed by O. II. Gliddon, Junior 
P.O. Scioto county Ohio, and situated on Poplar Fork of Pine 
creek, 7 miles northeast of the Ohio river, fourteen southwest of 
Ironton, was built in 1847 10 feet across the bosh by 31 feet 
high, and made in thirty-one weeks of 1856 2,078 tons of iron 
out of lowest coal measure block and crop hematite ores. 

519. Brushcreek Cold-blast Furnace, in Adams county Ohio, on Brush Creek 
twelve miles from the Ohio river, was built in 1812 and run in 1813 by Mr. James 
Rogers, now living at Hanging Rock. It and the two following furnaces were de¬ 
serted soon after the Ironton and Hanging Rock ores were discovered and worked, 
that is about the year 1826, when the Messrs. Hamilton, Andrew Ellison, Archibald 
Pauli, and Mr. Rogers, who had gone from Pennsylvania to Adams county, began 
to operate in Lawrence county. Andrew Dempsey came about the same time direct 
from Pennsylvania. Thos. Means’ father, Governor McArthur, and Thos. James, of 
Chilicothe, dec., were all three owners in Adams Co. 

520. Old Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, in Adams county Ohio, was 
built in 1816 and abandoned about 1826. 

<V\ 

221. Marble Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, on Brush Creek in Adams 
county Ohio, ten miles above Brushcreek Furnace 519, was also built in 1816 and 
abandoned about 1826. 

521.1. Globe Furnace, six miles northwest of Greenupsburg, on Tygart’s 
Creek in Greenup county Kentucky. Abandoned. 

522. New Hampshire Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Seaton, White, Davison & Culbertson, managed 
by T. Davison, Quincy P.O. Greenup county Kentucky, and 
situated on a branch of Tygart’s creek, twelve miles west of 
Greenupsburg and ten miles south of east from Quincy on the 
river, was built in 1846 (?) 10 feet across the bosh by 32 feet 
high and made in twenty-two weeks of 1854 970 tons of iron 
out of lower coal measure carbonate and fossil ores in the hills 
around. 

523. Kenton Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by John Waring & Sons, managed by John Waring Quincy 
P.O. Lewis county Ohio, and situated in Greenup county Ken¬ 
tucky, on Big White-oak creek and State road fifteen miles west 
of Greenupsburg six miles from the Ohio, was built in 1854 11 
feet across the bosh by 36 feet high and made in twenty-seven 
weeks of 1856 1,500 tons of iron out of lower coal measure car¬ 
bonate, fossil and crop hematite ores from the hills around. 

H 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN KENTUCKY. 123 

524. Raccoon Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Barr, McGrew & Co. managed by William H. 
McGrew, Greenupsburg, Greenup county Kentucky, and situ¬ 
ated on Raccoon Creek, eight miles southwest of Greenupsburg, 
was built in 1831 (?) 10J feet across the bosh by 34 feet high, 
and made in about thirty-five weeks of 1854 about 2,000 tons of 
iron out of lower coal measure block, kidney and crop hema¬ 
tite ores from the hills around. 

525. Buffalo Steam Warm-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by P. C. Vandyke & Co. managed by P. C. Vandyke, 
Greenupsburg, Greenup county Kentucky, and situated nine 
miles south of Greenupsburg, was built in 1852 10 feet across 
the bosh by 35 feet high and made in 1854 2,197 tons of iron 
out of the surrounding lower coal measure ores. 

526. Argolite Steam and Water Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Mr. Trimble last, and situated in Greenup county Kentucky, was situated ten miles 
south of Greenupsburg, but nothing but an old mill marks the place. Excavated 
from the rock, 6 by 25, (?) in 1818 by Richard Dearing, it was abandoned in lSS'?. 

526.5. Pactolus Furnace and Forge on the Sandy above Argolite Furnace 
iast described and built just after it by Ward & McMurtrie was abandoned twenty 
years ago. 

527. Caroline Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by W. Wurtz & Co. managed by M. R. King, Green¬ 
upsburg, Greenup county Kentucky, and situated three miles 
above Greenupsburg, one and a half mile back from the Ohio 
River, was built in 1833 10 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high, 
and made in 1857 perhaps 1,200 tons of cold short iron out of 
lower coal measure limestone ore within three miles east and 
south. 

528. Steam Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Wurtz, Spaulding & Co. managed by J. S. Jones, Greenups¬ 
burg Greenup county Kentucky, and situated four miles above 
Greenupsburg, two and a half miles back from the Ohio River, 
was built in 1817, rebuilt in 1854 10 feet across the bosh by 35 
feet high and made in 1854 perhaps 1,200 tons of iron out of 
surrounding lower coal measure ores. Furnace runs on a second 
growth of timber. 

529. Amanda Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Childs, Rogers, Walker & Co. managed by G. Walker, 

H 


/ 


« 

124: TABLE H.—CHARCOAL FUENACES IN EASTEEN KENTUCKY. 

Amanda P.O. Greenup county Kentucky, tlie only furnace situ¬ 
ated on the Ohio River shore, nine miles above Greenupsburg 
and opposite to Ironton, was built in 1831 10 feet across the 
bosh by 35 feet high, and made in 1854: about 200 tons of iron 
and nothing since. Its ores are carbonate, limestone and crop 
hematites from the horizontal lower coal measures in the river 
cliffs. 

530. Bellefonte Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Means, Russell & Means, managed by John Russell, 
Ashland P.O. Greenup county Kentucky, and situated on^ 
Hood’s Creek, twelve miles above Greenupsburg t^vo and a half 
miles back from the Ohio River, at Ashland, was built in 1828 
AO feet across the bosh, and made in thirty-two weeks of 1857 
1,721 tons of iron out of lower coal measure limestone and crop 
hematite ores in the surrounding hills. 

531. Clinton Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by J. Burwell & Co. managed by J. Burwell, Ashland 
P.O. Greenup county Kentucky, and situated four miles south 
from Bellefonte Furnace last described, was built in 1833 10 
feet across the bosh and made in 1857 about 1,500 tons of iron 
out of lower coal measure limestone ore hauled from the nearly 
horizontal outcrops west of the furnace which stands like Oak- 
ridge 501, in the middle coal measures. 

532. Pennsylvania Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Ross, Lampton & Co. managed by William H. 
'' Lampton, Greenupsburg P.O. Greenup county Kentucky, and 
situated two miles north of Steam Furnace 528, on William’s 
Creek, six miles west of its railway station five miles south of 
Ashland, was built in 1844 11 feet across the bosh by 35 feet 
high, and made in thirty-one weeks of 1855 1,386 tons of iron 
out of lower coal measure limestone, block and crop hematite 
ores within four miles around. 

533. Buena Vista Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

. owned by H. Means & Co. managed by John Rhoads, Catlets- 
burg P.O. Greenup county Kentucky, and situated on a branch 
of Little Sandy river four miles south of Pennsylvania Furnace 
last described, five miles west of its railway station ten miles 
southwest of Ashland, was built in 1848 10 feet across the bosh 
by 35 feet high, and made in thirty-two weeks of 1854 1 649 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN KENTUCKY. 


125 


tons of iron ont of brown hematite crop ore from tlie horizontal 
lower coal measures around. 

534. Greenup Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Wilson, Baird & Co. managed by A. J. Bell, Green- 
upsburg P.O. Greenup county Kentucky, and situated on the 
Little Fork of Sandy river three miles west of Pennsylvania 
Furnace 532, was built in 1815 ’16 11 feet across the bosh by 
37 feet high and made in about thirty-four weeks of 1856 about 
2,600 tons of iron out of lower coal measure limestone and some 
block ores from the hills around. 

535. Laurel Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Wurtz & Brothers, managed last by J. S. Jones, 
Greenupsburg Greenup county Kentucky, and situated twelve 
miles southwest of Greenupsburg, was built in 1849 10 feet 
across the bosh by 40 high and made in thirty-one weeks of 
1855 2,150 tons of iron from lower coal measure block and kid¬ 
ney carbonate ores from the hills around. 

53 6. Boone Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Eifurt, Watkins & Co. Boone P.O. Greenup county Ken¬ 
tucky, and situated on Grassy creek fourteen miles southwest of 
Greenupsburg, about forty paces from the Carter county line, 
was built in 1857 11 feet across the bosh by 40 high and made 
in 1857 perhaps 500 tons of iron out of lower coal measure 
ores. 

537. Star Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Lampton, Kichols & Co. managed by K. W. Lamp- 
ton Cattelsburg P.O. Carter county Kentucky, and situated 
four miles southwest of Buena Yista Furnace 533, on Williams 
Creek and railroad located line fourteen miles from Ashland, 
was built in 1848 lli feet across the bosh by 36 feet high and 
made in 1857 about 2,050 tons of iron out of lower coal measure 
ores. 

537.5. Campbranch or Farewell Furnace near the Carter county line four¬ 
teen miles from Greenupsburg on Little Sandy river was built by David and John 
Trimble and abandoned thirty or forty years ago. 

538. Mount Savage Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by It. M. Biggs, managed by Andrew Biggs, 
Ashland P.O. Greenup county Kentucky, and situated in 
Carter county on Straight creek, three miles south of its rail- 

H 


126 TABLE n.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN EASTERN KENTUCKY. 

road station, six miles east of Grayson and eiglit miles south 
of Star Furnace last described, was built in 1847, rebuilt in 
1853 10 feet across the bosh by 31 feet high and made in 
thirty-six weeks of 1856 2,031^ tons of iron out of lower coal 
measure red and blue limestone ore and sandy and argillaceous 
block carbonate ores from the hills around. 

539. Sandy Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by William Wutz of 
Cincinnati, managed by J. S. Jones, Bottsfork P.O. Lawrence county Kentucky, and 
situated on Bolt’s creek five miles west of Big Sandy ten miles east of Star Furnace 
537, was built in 1849 10J feet across the bosh by 32 feet high and made in 1854 
about 1,000 tons and nothing since out of lower coal measure refractory ores. 

540. Carter’s Caney Charcoal Furnace, owned by R. 
and A. S. Carter, Bath county Kentucky, and situated fourteen 
miles east of Owingsville on Caney Fork of Licking river five 

- miles east of Olympian Springs and near the White Sulphur 
Springs 53 miles east of Lexington, made a blast in 1857 ’8, on 
limestone hematite ore from the lower coal measures. 

540.5. Clearcreek Charcoal Furnace on Licking river is owned by Hurte and 
Berry, Hugh Barr agent, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

541. Old Slate Charcoal Furnace, in Bath county Kentucky, and situated on 
the State branch of Licking river five (?) miles northeast of Owingsville, is said to 
be the oldest iron works in Kentucky, built by the government troops in 1791, and 
ran until 1838 upon Magnesian limestone ore in the Upper Silurian or Clinton Group 
Formation No. V. 

542. Millercreek Old Charcoal Furnace in Estill county Kentucky, eight 
miles northeast of Irvine, stands at the head of Miller’s creek a small branch of the 
Kentucky river, about fifty miles due south of Maysville on the Ohio river, and used 
to run on subcarboniferous grey carbonate ore of Formation XI. 

543. Cottage Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by J. C. Mason and Levi Wheeler, Irvine P.O. Estill 
county Kentucky, was built in 1856 to run upon the same sub- 
carboniferous or sub conglomerate grey carbonate ore of Forma¬ 
tion XI. and made in eighteen weeks of 1857 725 tons of iron. 

544. Estill Steam or Red River Steam Cold-blast 
Charcoal Furnace. owned by Josiah A. Jackson and J. W. 
Jones, managed by the latter, Redriver P.O. Estill county Ken¬ 
tucky, and situated on Miller’s and FLardwick creek 10m. S.S.E. 
of the Red River Iron Works, and twelve miles northeast from 
Irvine, was built in 1830, rebuilt in 1849 10J feet across the bosh 
by 33 feet high and made in eighteen weeks of 1857 693 tons of 
carwheel iron out of ore mined from the surface of limestone. 

H 


TABLE K.—FURNACES IN MIDDLE KENTUCKY. 


127 


545. An Old Furnace in Russell county Kentucky, five miles south of James¬ 
town, was in operation twenty-five years ago, running on the ore found on the table 
land near the Creelsborough-Jamestown road, in red clay. 

546. Belmont Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by J. B. Alexander & Co. of Louisville and managed 
by W. Patterson of Belmont Furnace P.O. Bullitt county 
Kentucky, stands twenty-six miles south of Louisville, was built 
in 1844, rebuilt in 1853, and bought with the two furnaces next 
to be described by its present owners in March 1858, is 10 feet 
wide across the top of the bosh by 33 feet high inside, and 
made in six months of 1857 1,140 tons of machinery and mill 
iron out of carbonate ores, abundant in the grey or ash colored 
shales [of Formation YIH] overlying the black Devonian slate 
[Formation YIIL] in the southeast part of the range of the 
knobs of Bullitt, extending along the waters of Cane river soutli- 
eastwardly into Kelson county, and therefore identical with the 
peculiar ores of Huntingdon county Pennsylvania above Ho/ 
YII. or the Oriskany Sandstone. 

547. Salt River Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the same 
as and situated three miles to the northwest of Belmont Furnace last described, 
and one mile from the Louisville and Nashville railroad, was built earlier (in 1832), 
is of the same size and used the same ore until it stopped finally in 1853. It made 
a tough forge iron. 

548. Nelson Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
also by the same, but managed by J. B. Patterson of Hew 
Haven P.O. Helson county Kentucky, is forty miles south of 
Louisville, on the Lebanon branch railroad; it was built in 
1834 and rebuilt in 1853, the size of the other two 10 by 33, 
and made in twenty-seven weeks of 1857 1,256 tons forge iron 
out of similar Devonian carbonate ore from Salt Spring Hollow 
where it is a solid plate from twelve to sixteen inches thick, and 
from banks a few hundred yards from the furnace. 

549. Alexander’s Steam Hot-blast Stone Coal Furnace, 

owned by R. S. C. A. Alexander, and managed by Wm. Tor¬ 
rance of Greeneville Mulilenburg county Kentucky, was built 
in 1857 on the south bank of Green river at a point formerly 
called Paradise, now Airdrie, 35 miles above Lock 2 (Ramsay), 
10 miles below the mouth of Mud river (Lock 3), 4 miles above 
the crossing of the Lexington and Hashville railroad line, 10 miles 
by river above Lewisport. and 10 miles east-northeast of Green- 

Table K 


12S TABLE K. - CHARCOAL FURNACES IN WESTERN KENTUCKY. 


ville. It was built 15J feet across the bosh by 48 feet high, for 
bituminous coal from the Airdrie bed and black band iron ore, 
both mined close by the furnace. An old furnace out of blast 
for fifteen years was bought by Mr. Alexander and its machi¬ 
nery removed. 

550. Old Bucknor Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, seven miles south-southeast 
of Greenville Muhlenburg county Kentucky, on Battish creek, had plenty of slaty 
black band ore and also fossil ore within two miles. 

551. Hurricane Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

on Hurricane creek 2J miles from its mouth and the Ohio 
river, commonly known as the “Jackson Furnace,” the original 
structure having been built by Andrew Jackson, Jun. in 1853, 
is now owned by John W. Walker of Hash ville and J. R. Has¬ 
sell of Marion P.O. Crittenden county Kentucky. Rebuilt in 
1856 10 feet wide across the top of the bosh by 34 feet high 
inside, it made in six months of 1857 about 1,200 tons of soft 
metal used by the rolling mills for mixing, out of brown hema¬ 
tite ore from the Jackson bank one and a half miles distant. 

552. Crittenden Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace 

is the lowest down of the Cumberland river furnaces, owned 
by G. D. Cobb and managed by C. C. Cobb of Dycusburg 
Crittenden county Kentucky, stands one and a half miles north¬ 
east of that town, was built in 1848, is 9 feet wide by 30 high 
inside, and made in 1855 about 1,300 tons of metal out of brown 
hematite ores from the neighborhood. 

553. Ozeoro, once Hopewell, Steam Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned and managed by Conner & Hughes, stands on 
the west side of the Cumberland river two miles west of Dycus¬ 
burg, in Livingston county Kentucky, was built in 1847 and 
rebuilt in 1857, is like the last 9 by 30 inside, and made in 
thirty-three weeks of 1856 1,096 tons of metal out of the brown 
hematite ores of the neighborhood. 

554. Underwood Furnace in Lyon county Kentucky, on the same side of the 
river as the last and three miles off southeast, was built by General White in 1846 
and abandoned the same year. 

555. Suwannee Iron Works Steam Cold-blast Char¬ 
coal Furnace, owned and managed by Wm. Kelly & Company, 
stands on the west fork of Poplar creek, two and a half miles 
back from Cumberland river and five miles west-northwest of 

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CHARCOAL FURNACES IN "WESTERN KENTUCKY. 


129 


Eddyville Lyon county Kentucky, was built the same year with 
Underwood Furnace last described (in 1846), is 10 feet wide by 
35 feet high inside, and made in forty-four weeks of 1857 1,700 
tons of metal adapted to the making of steel and' used in Pitts¬ 
burg for that purpose and in Cincinnati for making boiler plate 
out of brown hematite ore from the Iron Mountain bank three 
miles off to the west. During the last four years the metal has 
been converted into blooms at Union Forge and thence shipped 
by river to market. It is at this furnace that Mr. Kelly’s pro¬ 
cess for refining iron in the hearth has been most fully experi¬ 
mented upon. 

556. An Old Furnace two miles north of Eddyville built by Stacker & Watson 
in 1830 was dismantled in 1846. 

557. Mammoth Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Grafienried & Co. and managed by J. L. James jun. 
Eddyville P.O. Lyon county Kentucky, stands one mile from 
the left bank of Cumberland river on Little Hurricane creek 5 
miles south of Eddyville, was built by Charles Stacker in 1845, 
is 9 feet 2 inches wide across the top of the bosh by 31-J- feet 
high inside, and made in forty-eight weeks of 1857 1,514 tons 
of metal out of brown hematite ore dug within three-quarters of 
a mile west of the furnace. 

558. Fulton Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned and managed by Daniel Flillman of Empire Iron 
Works P.O. Trigg county Kentucky, stands in Lyon county 
eight miles south of Eddyville, three miles north of Empire 
Furnace and two miles west of the Tennessee Polling Mill, was 
built in 1845 by Watson & Hillman, 11 by 33 inside, and made 
in twenty-two weeks of 1857 1,044 tons of metal for the rolling 
mill and for St. Louis and the Lower Mississippi markets, out 
of brown pot hematite ores from the immediate neighborhood. 
The hot blast has only been used since the spring of 1856. 

559. Centre Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the same as Fulton Furnace last described, is eleven 
miles south of Eddyville and two and a half miles west of 
Empire Furnace (next below). It was built by the present 
owner in 1852 10 feet wide by 35 feet high inside, and made 
in forty-six weeks of 1856 2,139-J tons of metal. 

9 


K 


130 TABLE K.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN WESTERN KENTUCKY. 

560. Empire Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the same as the Fulton and Centre furnaces last de¬ 
scribed, stands on the left bank of the Cumberland River, one 
mile south of the Tennessee Foiling Mill and Forge and eleven 
miles from Eddyville; was built by T. T. Watson in 1843, and 
sold in 1849 ; is 9J feet wide by 35 feet high inside, and made 
in forty-five weeks of 1856 1,836 tons of metal. The tunnel 
heads of Fulton, Centre and this furnace were all enlarged to 4 
feet during April of this year, to prepare for the introduction of 
the patent conical-bottom filler now so successfully used at the 
Iron Mountain furnaces in Missouri. 

561. Laura Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by J. J. Tomlinson and managed by J. F. Gentry, Laura Fur¬ 
nace P.O. Trigg county Kentucky, stands two miles west of 
the Cumberland River, three miles north of Tennessee State line 
was built by Gentry, Gunn & Co. in 1855, 10 feet wfide across 
the top of the bosh by 40 feet high, and'made in forty-four 
weeks of 1857 l,637i tons of iron out of brown hematite (mostly 
pot) ore from the neighborhood. 

562. Lineport or Old Stacker Furnace, built by Stacker & Raybure in 1845, 
and abandoned in 1854, stands on the right bank of the Cumberland River near the 
State line, and is now owned by Lewis, Irvin & Co. of the Cumberland Iron Works 
in Stewart county Tennessee. 

563. Gerard Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Bridge, Townley & Co. Mouth of Sandy P.O. Henry county 
Tennessee, stands in Calloway county Kentucky two miles west 
of the Tennessee River and one and a half mile north of the 
State line; was built by Browder, Kennedy & Co. in 1854, 
10^x24, and made in thirty-four weeks of 1857 1,595 tons of 
iron for the St. Louis market out of brown hematite ore. 

564. Saline Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
like Lineport Furnace Ho. 562, by Lewis, Irvin & Co. of the 
Cumberland Iron Works in Stewart county Tennessee, was built 
in 1853, two miles east of the Cumberland River, three from 
Lineport furnace and fourteen miles north by west from Dover 
court-house. It is 9 feet wide across the top of the bosh by 36 
feet high, ran but one year and will never run again unless new 
and good ore banks be discovered in the neighborhood. 

565. Great Western Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Hewell and Pritchett of Clarksville, Mont- 
K 


131 


CHAECOAL FUENACES IN WESTEEN TENNESSEE. 

gomery county Tennessee, stands in Stewart county near the State 
line, on the dividing ridge between the two great rivers and 
eighteen miles northwest of Dover court-house. It was built by 
Brian, Newell & Co. in 1854, is 10 feet wide by 40 high inside, 
and made in thirty-four weeks of 1855 about 1,350 tons of metal 
out of brown hematite ores of the neighborhood. Idle since in 
1856. 

566. Iron Mountain Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Ledbetter & Bostick (H. P. Bostick, Nash¬ 
ville, Tennessee), is twelve miles northwest of Dover court¬ 
house, Stewart county Tennessee, was built in the same year by 
the same parties as Great Western Furnace last described, 10^ 
feet wide by 42 feet high inside, made about 1,200 tons in 
thirty weeks in 1855 and nothing since. It used the pipe and 
pot brown hematite ore scattered over the surface, no perma¬ 
nent bank having been discovered yet. 

567. Peytona Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Thomas Kirkman and managed by his son, is situated 
eight miles west-northwest of Dover court-house, Stewart county 
Tennessee, between the two rivers. It was built in 1847, re¬ 
built in 1856, is 9 feet wide inside by 42 feet high, and made in 
forty-six weeks of 1857 1,812 tons of metal for St. Louis out of 
brown hematite ores from beds a mile off north and south. 

568. Clark Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Cobb, Phillips & Co. and managed by William Phillips, 
Standing Bock P.O. Stewart county Tennessee, is eight miles 
southwest of Dover court-house, on Leatherwood Creek, is 9|- 
feet wide across the top of the bosh and 34 feet high, and made 
in thirty-one weeks of 1856 perhaps 1,200 tons of iron out 
of brown hematite ore dug near the furnace. Out for two 
years. 

569. Lagrange Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Cobb, Phillips & Co. managed by William 
Phillips, Standing Bock P.O. Stewart county Tennessee, and 
situated on Leatherwood Creek, one mile north from the Ten¬ 
nessee Biver, ten miles southwest of Dover court-house, was 
changed in January 1857 from hot to cold-blast, is 8 feet across 
the bosh by 36 feet high, and made in thirty-nine weeks of 

K 


132 TABLE K .—CHAECOAL FUENACES IN WESTEEN TENNESSEE. 

1857 1,750 tons of iron out of brown hematite ore from banks 
two miles below. 

570. Eclipse Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Cobb, Phillips & Co. managed by William Phillips, 
Standing Pock P.O. Stewart county Tennessee, and situated on 
Hurricane Creek, four miles north of the Tennessee Piver, twelve 
miles south by west of Dover court-house, is 9J- across the bosh 
by 35 feet high, and made in thirty-three weeks of 1855 1,291 
tons of iron out of brown hematite ore from banks two miles off 
to the west. 

571. Crosscreek Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Jordan, Brother & Co. Indian Mound P.O. Stewart 
county Tennessee, and situated seven miles north of the Cum¬ 
berland Iron Works, was built in 1853, 10 feet across the bosh 
by 41 feet high and made in 1854 1,905 tons of iron for Yalley 
Forge out of brown hematite ore close by. 

572. Rough-and-ready Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by Barksdale, Cook & Co. Indian Mound P.O. Stew¬ 
art county Tennessee, and situated five miles northeast of the 
Cumberland Iron Works, was built in 1850 8 feet across the bosh 
by 30 high, and made in 1854 1,300 tons; has made nothing 
since 1856. 

573. Bell wood Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Woods, Lewis & Co. managed by E. H. Lewis, Stew¬ 
art county Tennessee, and situated half a mile back from the 
north bank of the Cumberland Piver, four miles north of the 
Cumberland Iron Works, is 9 feet wide across the bosh by 32 
feet high and made in 1857 2,035 tons of iron out of brown 
hematite ore from the old Bear Spring bank, opened in 1829, a 
mile due west of the Cross Creeks’ mouths. 

574. Bear Spring Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Woods, 
Lewis & Co. Cumberland Iron Works P.O. Stewart county Tennessee, stands a ruin 
on the Clarksville and Dover road a mile northwest of the Cumberland Iron Works, 
is 9 by 28 inside, and made in 1854 962 tons of iron out of a rich ore close by. It 
was stopped in 1854 and its machinery removed to Dover No 2. 

575. Dover No. 2 Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Woods, Lewis & Co. managed by John A. Irvin, 
Stewart county Tennessee, and situated on South Cross creek 
three miles southwest of the Cumberland Iron Works, was re- 

K 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN WESTERN TENNESSEE. 133 

Writ in 1854 9 feet across the bosh by 32 feet high and made in 
1855 2,025 tons of iron ont of brown hematite ore from the 
%ame bank as that mined for Bellwood Furnace 573. 

576. Ashland Steam Coal-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by G. P. Wilcox & Co. managed by G. P. Wilcox, 
Bowling Green, Cumberland county Tennessee, but situated in 
Stewart county and eight miles south by east of the Cumber¬ 
land Iron Works and six miles southwest of Bowling Green, 
was built in 1851 with the dressed stones of the Yan Buren 
stack (built by Brunsen more than twenty years ago), 9 by 35, 
and made in twenty-three weeks of 1857 1,150 tons of iron out 
of brown hematite ore found half a mile distant. 

577. Union Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Robert McFall 
Palmyra P.O. Montgomery county Tennessee, stands in working order two miles 
south of the Cumberland river at Bowling Green, was built in 1853 9 feet across the 
bosh by 35 feet high and made in half of 1854 550 tons of iron, and nothing since 
for want of ore. 

578. Blooming Grove Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, built by Dorsan 
Bailis in 1834, four miles north of Poplar Spring Furnace 579, one mile south of the 
Dover-Clarksville road was abandoned to ruin ten or twelve years ago. 

579. Poplar Spring Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by J. H. Jones & Co. managed by J. H. Jones, Clarks¬ 
ville P.O. Montgomery county Tennessee, and situated three 
miles north of the Cumberland river thirteen miles west by 
south of Clarksville, is 9£ feet wide across the bosh by 36J feet 
high and made in 1855 1,300 tons of iron out of brown hema¬ 
tite ore lying around the works. 

580. Yellow Creek Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by It. Steel & Co. managed by J. McDonald and 
A. Brigham, Clarksville P.O.. Montgomery county Tennessee, 
and situated fourteen miles southwest of Clarksville, was built 
in 1802, is 7 feet wide across the bosh by 31 feet high and made 
in thirty weeks of 1855 1,050 tons of iron out of brown hema¬ 
tite pipe ore. 

581. Sailor’s Rest Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Isaac D. West, managed by John Minor, Clarksville 
P.O. Montgomery county Tennessee, and situated fifteen miles 
southwest of Clarksville in the corner of the county, was built 
in 1854 8£ feet wide across the bosh by 37 feet high and made 



134 TABLE K.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN WESTERN TENNESSEE. 


in thirty-seven weeks of 1857 1,495 tons of iron ont of brown 
hematite pipe ore one mile from the furnace and from the mouth 
of Yellow creek. 

582. Montgomery Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Robertson, Russell & Co. managed by W. B. R. & J. 
Spence, Palmyra P.O. Montgomery county Tennessee, and situ¬ 
ated twelve miles southwest of Clarksville and one and a half 
miles south of Palmyra P.O. is 9 feet wide across the bosh by 
38 feet high, and made in thirty-five weeks of 1857 1,410 tons 
of iron out of brown hematite pipe and block ore within two 
miles of Palmyra. 

583. Phoenix Steam Oold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by J. L. James 
Clarksville P.O. Montgomery county Tennessee, stands idle fourteen miles south¬ 
west of Clarksville, and made in 1854 1,500 tons of iron and nothing since. 

584. Antonio O. K. Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Dixon, Yanleer & Co. managed by T. Y. Dixon 
Clarksville P.O. Montgomery county Tennessee, and situated 
on East Yellow creek six miles southeast of Palmyra and fifteen 
south-southwest of Clarksville, was burnt down and rebuilt 
about 1857 9 feet across the bosh by 34 high and made in thirty- 
nine weeks of 1855 1,340 tons of iron out of brown hematite 
ore around the furnace. 

585. Louisa Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Jackson, McKiernan & Co. managed by Stephen D. Walker, 
Clarksville P.O. Montgomery county Tennessee, and situated 
seven miles south of the Cumberland river and twelve miles 
south of Clarksville, is 9 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, 
and made in forty-six weeks of 1855 2,034 tons of iron for the 
neighboring forge out of brown hematite ore from a bank six 
hundred yards towards the west. 

586. Washington Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Dr. Holmes 
was built by S. & J. Stacker on the old Charlotte-Clarksville county road in Mont¬ 
gomery county Tennessee, four miles north-northwest from Lafayette Furnace 588, 
and 9 miles south of Clarksville, and was abandoned twenty years ago and is in 
ruins. 

587. Mount Vernon Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Jack- 
son, McKiernan & Co. was built about 1838 by Baxter & Co. in Montgomery 
county Tennessee, four miles north-northwest of Louisa Furnace 585, and twelve 
miles south of Clarksville, a double stack which ran but one year, was abandoned 
and is in ruins. 

K 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN WESTERN TENNESSEE. 


135 


588. Lafayette Steam Oold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Oliver Tins¬ 
ley, was probably built by Samuel Stacker, on the same road as Washington Fur¬ 
nace 586, and two miles north of Tennessee Furnace 589, and three northeast of 
Louisa Furnace 585, and was abandoned by William M. Stewart many years ago 
and is in ruins. 

589. Tennessee Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Jackson, 
McKiernan & Co. stands an abandoned stack one mile west of Water Forge, five 
miles northwest of Steam Forge, in Montgomery county Tennessee ; it was aban¬ 
doned in 1851. 

590. Cumberland Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Anthony W. Yanleer, managed by Hugh Kirkman, 
Charlotte P.O. Dickson county Tennessee, and situated on Iron 
fork of Barton’s creek seven miles north by west of Charlotte, 
was built about 1790, is 9J feet across the bosh by 29 feet 
high, and made in 1857 1,831 tons of foundry metal out of 
brown hematite ore within a mile or two. 

591. Carroll Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by William C. Napier, managed by William Thomas, 

Clarksville P.O. Dickson county Tennessee, and situated on a 

branch of Barton’s creek three miles northwest of Charlotte, was 

rebuilt in 1853 8 feet across the bosh by 30 high and made in 

forty-two weeks of 1857 984 tons of iron out of brown hematite 

ore from three miles west. 

* « 

592. Bellevue, formerly Mammoth, Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

built about 1825 by Montgomery Bell, on Jones’ creek, three miles south of Char¬ 
lotte, 11 feet bosh by 45 feet high, ran until after 1834 and was then abandoned for 
want of charcoal and ore at hand, and has now disappeared. 

593. Worley Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by James L. Bell, managed by J. M. Skelton, Clarksville 
P.O. Dickson county Tennessee, and situated ten miles south of 
west of Charlotte, was built in 1844, rebuilt in 1854, 8J feet 
across the bosh by 36£ feet high and made in forty weeks of 
1857 about 1,200 tons of iron out of brown hematite ore from 
banks three hundred yards distant. 

594. Piney Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by William H. Crutcher of Nashville, and situated nine miles 
south of Charlotte in Dickson county Tennessee, was built in 
1832, is 9 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high and made in 1854 
1,731 tons of iron out of brown hematite ore, three miles off. 

595. Laurel Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by William H. 
Crutcher like the last, and situated six miles southeast of Charlotte in Dickson 

K 


136 TABLE Jy.-CIIARCOAL FURNACES IN WESTERN TENNESSEE. 

county Tennessee, was built in 1815, rebuilt in 1854 9 feet across the bosh by 28 
feet high, and made in forty weeks of 1855 657 tons of iron out of brown hematite 
ore half a mile off. The furnace is abandoned and a camp-meeting pulpit erected in 
the run out arch. 

596. Jackson Water Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by the Jackson 
Furnace Company Charlotte P.0. Dickson county Tennessee, stands idle twelve 
miles east of Worley Furnace 693, and fourteen southeast of Charlotte, was built in 
1833, is 10 feet across the bosh by 47 feet high, and made in 1854 50 tons of iron 
and nothing since, and it will probably never make iron again. 

597. Oakland Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Easley and Carotliers, managed by P. H. Maroony, 
Pinewood P.O. Hickman county Tennessee, and situated seven 
miles northwest of Centreville, was built in 1854 7 feet across 
the bosh by 30 high and made in about thirty-four weeks of 
1856 about 1,200 tons of iron out of brown hematite ore from 
banks a mile to the south. A new stack will soon be built. 

598. iEtna Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Goodrich, Fell & Hillman, managed by L. S. Goodrich, 
Hickman county Tennessee, stands idle six miles southwest of 
Centreville, was built in 1846, is 9-J feet across the bosh by 30 
high and made in thirty-nine weeks of 1854 1,509 tons of iron 
out of brown honeycomb hematite ore. 

599. Cedargrove Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by William Bradley & Co. managed by William Brad¬ 
ley, Perryville P.O. Perry county Tennessee, and situated two 
miles east of Perryville, is 9 feet across the bosh by 30 high 
and made in thirty-nine weeks of 1857 1,250 tons of iron out of 
brown hematite ore from the vicinity. 

600. Cedargrove 2 Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned and situated like the last, and run alternately with Ho. 1, 
is only 7-J feet across the bosh by 30 high. 

601. Brown sport Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Dick and McClure, Decaturville P.O. Decatur county 
Tennessee, and situated six miles south of Perryville and three 
miles west of the Tennessee river, was built in 1848, 10J- feet 
across the bosh by 31 feet high and made in 1854 2,109 tons of 
iron out of brown hematite ore. 

602. Decatur Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Golliday, Cheathem & Co. managed by G. W. 
Carter, Clifton P.O. Wayne county Tennessee, and situated in 

K 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MISSOURI. 


137 


Decatur county on the left bank of the Tennessee river 
six miles west of Clifton P.O. Wayne county, and fourteen 
miles south of Perry ville, was built in 1854 9f feet across the 
bosh by 40 high, and made in forty-six weeks of 1856 1,976 tons 
of iron out of brown hematite ore from banks a mile or two to¬ 
wards the east. 

603. Marion Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by James E. Walker of Columbia and Samuel P. Walker 
of Memphis, and situated two miles southwest of Carrollsville in 
Hardin county Tennessee, is nine feet across the bosh by 30 
high and made in half of 1854 915 tons of iron out of brown 
hematite ore. 

0 

6 04. Forty-eight 1 Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Pointer Brothers, Waynesborough P.O. Wayne 
county Tennessee, and situated on Forty-eight-mile Creek, where 
it is crossed by the Central Columbia Memphis turnpike, twenty 
miles from Clifton on the Tennessee Piver and five miles east of 
Waynesborough, was built in 1846, 8 feet across the bosh by 27 
feet high and made in connection with Ho. 2, in 1854 2,445 
tons of iron out of brown hematite ore from banks two hundred 
yards distant. 

605. Forty-eight 2 Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned and situated like the last, is of the same size, both 
built of brick, and to be torn down and replaced by a single 
stack, cold-blast, 10 feet across the bosh by 42 feet high, with a 
capacity of fifteen tons per day. 

606. Pilotknob 1 Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Pilotknob Iron Company, John S. McCune Pre¬ 
sident, Joseph S. Pease Secretary, office Ho. 34 Horth Com¬ 
mercial street St. Louis, managed by J. B. Bailey, Pilotknob 
P.O. Iron county Missouri, and situated on the north side of the 
Pilotknob, at the end of the railroad eighty-six miles south- 
southwest from St. Louis, was built in 1849, 9J feet across the 
bosh by 45 feet high, and made in sixteen weeks of 1857 1,039 
tons of iron out of specular ore. 

607. Pilotknob 2 Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned and situated like the last, but built in 1855, 10 feet across 

K 


138 


TABLE K.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN MISSOURI. 


the bosh by 45 feet high, and made in 29 weeks of 1857 3,134 
tons of iron out of specular ore. 

\ 607.5. An old Charcoal Furnace, was once in operation in town 33, range 4 

north, half-section 2, running on nearly vertical veins of specular ore. 

\ * i 

608. Iron Mountain 1 Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by the American Iron Mountain Company, James 
Harrison of St. Louis President, managed by John J. Scott, 
Iron Mountain P.O. St. Francis county Missouri, and situated at 
the southwest base of Little Iron Mountain on the railroad six 
miles from the Pilotknob Furnaces and eighty from St. Louis, 
was built in 1846, rebuilt in 1854, 9 feet across the bosh by 31 
feet high, and made in forty-seven weeks of 1855 2,103 tons of 
iron out of magnetic ore. It was cold-blast until 1857. 

609. Iron Mountain 2 Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned and situated like the last, was built in 1850, 
rebuilt in 1854, 9 feet across the bosh by 32J feet high, and 
made in twenty-five weeks of 1857 1,922 tons of iron out of 
magnetic ore. 

610. Iron Mountain 3 Steam Hot blast Charcoal Fur 
nace, owned and situated like the last, was built in 1854 
9J feet across the bosh by 38 feet high and made in thirty-five 
weeks of 1856 4,202 tons of iron out, of magnetic ore. 



611. Maramec Water Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by T. James’ heirs Chilicothe, Ohio, leased and managed 
by W. James, Maramefc Iron Works P.O. Crawford county 
Missouri, and situated ninety miles west-soutliwest from St. 
Louis, was built in 1826, rebuilt in 1856, 9 feet across the bosh 
by 34 feet high and made in thirty-four weeks of 1854 1,213 
tons of iron. 

612. Franklin or Moselle Steam Cold-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by Franklin Iron Mining Company, managed 
by T. W. Childs, Franklin county Missouri, and situated forty- 
five miles west-southwest of St. Louis, was built in 1846 9-J- feet 
across .the bosh by 38 feet high, and made in forty weeks of 
1855 about 2,000 tons of iron out of brown hematite lower Silu¬ 
rian ore on the Company’s lands. 

613. Illinois Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by C. Wolfe & Co. Cincinnati, Ohio, managed by 

K 




CHARCOAL FURNACES IN INDIANA. 


139 


C. Henninger, Elizabethtown, Hardin county Illinois, and situ¬ 
ated four miles nortli-northwest of Elizabethtown, is 10 feet 
across the bosh by 35 feet high and made in about forty-fdur 
weeks of 1857 about 1,800 tons of iron out of peroxide of iron 
filling vertical fissures in limestone. 

614. Martha Steam Hot and Cold-blast Charcoal Fur¬ 
nace, owned by the Saline Coal & Manufacturing Company, 
resident manager Charles Sellars, Elizabethtown P.O. Hardin 
county Illinois, and situated four miles north of Elizabethtown 
and two miles east of Illinois Furnace last described, was built 
in 1849 10 feet across the bosh by 40 high, and made about 700 
tons of iron per annum out of the same ore as used by Illinois 
furnace last described. 

\ 615. Richland Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by A. Downing & Co. Bloomfield P.O. Green county 
Indiana, and situated two miles back from White river on Rich¬ 
land creek, was built in 1844, is 10 feet across the bosh by 34 
feet high and made in thirty weeks of 1857 about 1,000 tons of 
iron out of limestone ores mixed wdtli some bog and block. 

616. Indiana Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by E. M. Bruce & Co. managed by W. H. Watson, Yermilion 
county Indiana, and situated six miles £rom Sandford street 
Terre-Haute and Alton railway station, a few miles northwest 
from Terre-Haute, was built in 1839, is 10 feet across the bosh 
by 40 high and has made about 1,000 tons per annum out of 
brown hematite ore from the outcrop of a limestone bed among 
the coal measures. 

616.4. Laporte(?) Charcoal Furnace near Laporte, in northern Indiana, was 
built perhaps in 1848, used bog ore and now stands idle. 

616.5. Mishawaka Charcoal Furnace at Mishawaka, St. 
Joseph county Indiana was erected about 1833, has always done 
a fair business and is still running on bog ore. 

616.6. Elkhart (?) Charcoal Furnace, in Elkhart county northern Indiana 
used bog ore. 

617. Kalamazoo Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
W. Burtt & Son and managed by the same, Kalamazoo P.O. 
Kalamazoo county Michigan, stands at the junction of Kalama¬ 
zoo river with a small stream one mile north of the village, was 

K 


*40 TABLE K.-CHAEC0AL FUENACES IN’ MICHIGAN. 

rebuilt in 1857 feet across tbe bosb by 31 feet bigb and made 
in half of 1857 about 1,000 tons of iron out of bog ore dug half 
a mile to the west across the river. 

618. Quincy Steam Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by the Southern Michigan Iron Company, W. J. Briggs and 
Enos Gr. Berry owners and managers, Branch county Michigan, 
and situated three miles north of Quincy, was built in 1855 S-J 
feet across the bosh by 28 feet high and made in twenty-one 
weeks of 1857 450 tons of iron out of bog ore. 

619. Branch County Steam Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by the Branch County Iron Company, H. B. Gale lessee and 
manager, Quincy P.O. Branch county Michigan, and situated 
in Butler township four miles north of Quincy, was built in 
1854, and made in perhaps twenty-two weeks of 1857 perhaps 
500 tons of iron out of bog ore. 

620. Eureka Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by the Eureka Bon Company, office at the foot of Third street 
in Detroit, J. S. Yanalstyne agent at the works, Wayne county 
Michigan, and situated ten miles south-southwest of Detroit 
in the village of Wyandotte on the right bank of the Detroit, 
was built in 1855 9 feet across the bosh by 34 feet high and 
made in twenty-three weeks of 1857 1,128 tons of iron out of 
Lake Superior magnetic ore, stamped and roasted at the furnace. 

621. Detroit Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by the Detroit and Lake Superior Iron Manufacturing Company, 
A. A. Babineau secretary, situated at the east end of the city 
of Detroit in Wayne county Michigan, was built in 1857, re¬ 
built in 1858, 9 feet across the bosh by 42 feet high and made 
in ten weeks about 600 tons of iron from Lake Superior mag¬ 
netic ore. 

622. Pioneer 1 Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the Pioneer Iron Company, Charles T. Harvey agent 
at Marquette, L. T. Merrill treasurer, 189 Broadway Hew York, 
and situated sixteen miles west-southwest of Marquette, Mar¬ 
quette county Michigan, at the foot of the Jackson iron hill, 
was built in 1858 9 feet across the bosh by 42 feet high and 
has made 12 tons of iron per day out of red hematite from Jack- 
son Mountain and snecular ore. 

K 


CHAECOAL FUENACES IN WISCONSIN. 


141 


623. Pioneer 2 Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned and situated like the last, of the same size and capa¬ 
city, is building in 1858 to run the same metal from the same 
ores. 

624. Northwestern Charcoal Furnace, owned by the 
Northwestern Iron Company managed by F. Wilkes, Mayville 
P.O. Dodge county Wisconsin, and situated forty miles north¬ 
west of Milwaukee, five miles from the Iron Bidge, was built in 
1853, and made in 1857 1,614 tons of iron out of Upper Silurian 
red hematite of the Clinton group Formation Y. not fosr-diferous 
as it is in the eastern states, but oolitic and silicious. 

625. Ironton Charcoal Furnace, owned and managed by 
Jonas Tower, Ironton P.O. Sauk county Wisconsin, and situated 
in the town of Marston, Sec. 4, T. 12, P. 3 E. twenty-four miles 
w r est of Baraboa village, was built in 1857 7J feet across the 
bosh by 30 feet high with a capacity of about 3 tons per day, 
and made in Jan. and Feb. of 1858 64J tons of foundry metal 
out of Potsdam Sandstone or Lower Silurian brown hematite 
ore. 

626. Black River Charcoal Furnace, built by a German 
company, on the east bank of the Black Biver near its falls, four 
miles from flat-boat navigation to the Mississippi and on the 
location line of the Land Grant branch of the La Crosse railroad, 
was built to run upon azoic or primary ores, magnetic black 
oxide and red oxide mixed. 

626.5. Adirondack Charcoal Furnace A, owned by the 
Adirondack Iron and Steel Company, managed by J. P. Thomp¬ 
son, and situated on Sanford lake and Adirondack river, fifty 
miles from water navigation and eight miles from the Sacketts 
Harbor and Saratoga railroad location line in New York State, 
was built with the other works in 1827 or ’8, but has made very 
little iron, out of magnetic ore from the celebrated open 
quarry on the hillside above the lake. 

626.6. Adirondack Charcoal Furnace B was added to 
the works in 1854, 11£ feet wide across the bosh by 48 feet high, 
capacity 14 tons per day, but has made no iron. 

627. Mount Hope Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by B. F. Woodruff, Fort Ann P.O. Washington county New 

K 


142 TABLE K.—CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

York, and situated eight miles northwest of Fort Ann village 
on a small stream three miles southwest of South Bay, was built 
in 1836, is 10J feet across the bosh by 42 feet high and made in 
1854 1,820 tons of iron out of magnetic ore from the Cheever 
mine in Moriah township and also from the neighborhood. 

628. Crown Point Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

managed by E. S. Bogue, Crown Point P.O. Essex county New 
York, and situated ten miles west of Crown Point village, near 
Paradox creek and the east township line of Scroon, was built 
in 1845 11 feet across the bosh by 43 feet high, and made in 
1857 3,430 tons of iron out of magnetic ore from the Scroon 
and Penfield mines one mile distant from the furnace towards 
the west. 

629. Danemora Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by the State of New York and situated in the State 
Prison inclosure at Danemora in Clinton county New York, 
was built in 1854, 13 (?) feet across the bosh by 41' feet high, 
and made in thirty weeks of 1855 1,440 tons of iron out of 
magnetic ore mined within the inclosure. (AW abandoned .) 

630. Brasher Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Isaac W. Skinner, Ogdensburg St. Lawrence county New York, 
and situated on the west bank of Deer river eight miles north¬ 
east of Brasher’s Falls railroad station, and three miles south¬ 
east of Helena, was built in 1835, is 8 feet across the bosh by 29 
feet high, and made in half of 1855 perhaps 400 tons of foundry 
iron out of bog ore close by. 

630.4. Duane Charcoal Furnace, in Duane township, Franklin county New 
York, has been out ten years and is in ruins. 

630.6. Cantonfalls Charcoal Furnace, owned by H. Van Rensselaer, and 
situated south of Canton St. Lawrence county New York, has been out of blast 
eight years and is in ruins. 

631. Rossie Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
George Parish of Ogdensburg, managed by C. L. Lum, Eossie 
P.O. St. Lawrence county New York and situated in the vil¬ 
lage of Eossie on the north bank of Indian Eiver, fourteen miles 
north of the Antwerp railroad station, was built about 1808, re¬ 
built in 1844, 11 feet across the bosh by 43 feet high, and made 
in half of 1854 1,962 tons of iron out of red oxide ore or true 
K 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 


143 


hematite, from the Kean and Caledonia mines both near the 
railroad and twelve miles distant to the southeast. 

632. Redwood Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, managed 
by S. C. Sardan, Redwood P.O. Jefferson county New York, 
and situated two miles east of Redwood P.O. and at the outlet 
of Millsite lake, eight miles directly southwest from Rossie and 
eight southeast of its shipping port on the St. Lawrence, was 
built in 1849 (?) rebuilt in 1857 8-J- feet across the bosh by 30 
high and made in fourteen weeks of 1857 568 tons of iron out 
of red hematite from Kean’s mine. 

633. Wegatchie Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, managed 
by A. P. Sterling, Antwerp P.O. Jefferson county New York, 
and situated on Oswegatchee river, three miles northeast of 
Oxbow and seven north of Antwerp, was built in 1846, 8 feet 
across the bosh by 36 feet high and made in forty-one weeks of 
1856 1,107 tons of iron out of red hematite ore from the Ster¬ 
ling mine three miles distant towards the east and near the rail¬ 
road, four miles north of Antwerp. 

634. Fullerville Warm-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by Fuller & Peck, Fullerville Iron Works, St. 
Lawrence county New York and situated on the west bank of 
the west Oswegatchee branch, in the village of Fullerville, built 
in 1833, rebuilt in 1846, 8-J feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, 
made in about twenty-four weeks of 1856 about 700 tons of iron 
out of red hematite ore from the Kearney and Little York 
mines, mixed with magnetic ore from Clifton mine twenty-five 
miles distant. 

635. Sterlingburg Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, man¬ 
aged by A. P. Sterling, Antwerp P.O. Jefferson county New 
York and situated on the south bank of Indian river one mile 
east of Antwerp, was built in 1846, 9 feet across the bosh by 33 
feet high and made in thirty-eight weeks of 1854 1,222 tons of 
iron out of red hematite ore from the Sterling mine. The forge 
once occupied this site. 

636. Sterlingbush Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by James Sterling, Sterlingville P.O. Jefferson 
county New York, but situated in Diana township Lewis county 

K 


144 TABLE K.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

twelve miles south-southwest of Antwerp, on the west hank of 
Indian river, built in 1848, 9 feet across the bosh by 33 feet 
high and made in forty-two weeks of 1855 1,322 tons of iron 
out of red hematite ore from the Sterling mine. An old fur¬ 
nace once occupied this site. 

637. Sterlingville Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
and managed by James Sterling, Sterlingville P.O. Jefferson 
county Hew York and situated in the village, on Black creek 
three miles above its entrance into Indian river, built in 1837, 
rebuilt in 1857, 9 feet across the bosh by 33 feet high, and made 
in half of 1855 700 tons of iron out of red hematite ore from 
the Sterling mine. 

637.5. Carthage Charcoal Furnace in that village, Jefferson county New 
York, owned by the Antwerp Iron Company, P. S. Stewart local agent, Henry 
Nichol general agent, 24 William street New York city, was built about 1818, and 
has stood idle for ten years and is in ruins. 

638. Alpina Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned and 
managed by Z. II. Benton, Oxbow P.O. Jefferson county Hew 
York, and situated sixteen miles southeast of Antwerp on the 
outlet of Boney lake, two miles above its entrance into Indian 
river, was built in 1846, 9 feet across the bosh by 30 feet high, 
and made in twenty-three weeks of 1855 1,218 tons of iron out of 
red hematite ore from Kearney or Indian lake mine, mixed with 
black magnetic from the Jayville bed seven miles northeast. 

639. Taburg Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, managed by 
E. B. Armstrong, Borne P.O. Oneida county Hew York and 
situated in the village, on Fish Creek, near the line of the Rome 
and "Watertown railroad eleven miles northwest from Rome, 
was built in 1810, rebuilt in 1832, is 9 feet across the bosh by 
33 feet high, and made in forty-eight weeks of 1855 1,800 tons 
of iron out of Upper Silurian red hematite fossil ore of the Clin 
ton group, Formation Y. brought from southwest of Utica. 

640. Constantia Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by William A. Judson, agent and manager, Syracuse P.O. 
Oswego county Hew York and situated on the north shore of 
Oneida lake, in the village of Constantia, twenty miles east of 
north from Syracuse, is 9 feet across the bosh by 35 feet high, 
and made in 1856 perhaps 1,800 tons of iron out of Upper Silu- 
K 


CHARCOAL FURNACES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 


145 


rian red fossil ore of tlie Clinton group, Formation Y. mined 
southwest of Utica along its northern outcrop. 

641. Norwich A. Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Heed, Haynes & Co. Norwich, Chenango county 
New York and situated in the town of Norwich on the Che¬ 
nango canal midway between Utica and Binghampton, forty 
miles from each, was built in 1856, 9 feet across the bosh by 32 
feet high and made in thirty-four weeks of 1857 1,228 tons of 
iron out of Upper Silurian red fossil Clinton ore, Formation Y. 
mined in Oneida county. 

642. Norwich B. Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, 

owned by Andrews, Eider & Co. B. B. Andrews agent Nor¬ 
wich Chenango county New York, and situated beside the last, 
was built in 1856, 9-J feet across the bosh by 30 high and made 
in 1857 2,016 tons of iron out of the same ore. 

643. Wolcott Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
Leavenworth, Hendrick & Co. Wolcott P.O. Wayne county 
New York and situated on Wolcott creek, two miles north of 
the village, was built in 1821, rebuilt in 1846, 9 feet across the 
bosh by 35 feet high, and made in fifteen weeks of 1857 396 
tons of iron out of Upper Silurian red fossil ore of the Clinton 
group Formation Y. mined at its northern outcrop five miles 
off northeast. 

644. Ontario Water and Steam Hot-blast Charcoal 
Furnace, owned by J. M. French & Co. A. J. Bixby agent 
Bochester, Wayne county New York and situated on the west 
bank of Bear creek, two miles north of Ontario Centre and 
south of the lake shore, and twenty miles north of east from 
Eochester, was built about 1825, rebuilt in 1847, 8 feet across 
the bosh by 30 high and made in thirty-eight weeks of 1857 
1,004 tons of iron out of the same ore as the last described 
mined two miles off southwest. 

645. Clinton Steam Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, George 
B. Harris late superintendent, Ontario P.O. Wayne county New 
York, situated two miles southwest of Ontario Furnace last de¬ 
scribed, was built in 1848 9| feet across the bosh by 35 feet 
high, and made in thirty-four weeks of 1857 1,250 tons of iron 
out of Upper Silurian red fossil ore of the Clinton group, For- 

io " K 


146 TABLE K.-CHARCOAL FURNACES IN CANADA. 

mation V. mined close by, here at its northern outcrop rising 
from under the Alleghany mountains. 

646. L’llet Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by Du 
Puis, Robichon & Co. Three Rivers, Champlain county Canada 
East, and situated three miles from Saint Maurice Furnace 648, 
on l’llet rivulet two miles above its entrance into St. Maurice 
river, was built in IS57, 5 feet across the bosh by 30 high, and 
was to have made iron in 1858 out of bog ore dug near the 
furnace. 

647. Radnor Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by A. 
Larue & Co. Three Rivers Champlain county Canada East, and 
situated twelve miles east of north from Trois Rivieres, on 
Riviere au Lard, above the mouth of the river Champlain, was 
built in 1853 6J feet across the bosh by 25 feet highland made 
in 1856 1,176 tons of foundry iron out of bog ore dug in the 
vicinity. 

648. Saint Maurice Cold-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned 
by Porter & Stewart, managed by James C. Sinton Three 
Rivers, Canada East, and situated in Saint Maurice county, 
seven miles north from Trois Rivieres, at the mouth of a little 
stream entering St. Maurice river, was built about 1717, rebuilt 
1855, 6J feet across the bosh by 21 feet high, and made in 
thirty weeks of 1856 650 tons of carwlieel iron out of bog ore 
mined at various places in the neighborhood. A furnace is said 
to have been run here by the Jesuits one hundred and forty 
years ago. 

649. Marmora Hot-blast Charcoal Furnace, owned by 
the Marmora Iron Company, managed by William C. Evans, 
Marmora P.O. Llastings county Canada West and situated 
twenty-five miles northwest from Belleville, was built in 1856 
11 feet across the bosh by 42 feet high, and makes iron out of 
black magnetic oxide from mines five miles distant. 

650. A Furnace in New Brunswick. See Whitney’s 
u Metallic Wealth,” p. 458. 


K 


TABLES C. F. I. 


BLOOMERIES AND FORGES IN THE UNITED STATES. 

1. Nashua Forge, situated on the railroad to Lowell, below 
the Nashua depot and in sight of it, owned by the Nashua Bon 
Company, John H. Gage agent, Nashua, Hillsborough county 
New Hampshire, was built in 1848, has 9 heating furnaces, 12 
forge fires and 6 hammers driven by steam, and made in 1854 
825 tons of railroad axles, out of scrap with some old rails and 
foreign iron. The manufacture of wrought iron driving-wheels 
has been successfully commenced here for the first time in 
America. 

2. Westford Forge, situated at Forge Village on the Stony 
Brook railroad, seven miles from Lowell towards Groton, James 
Prescott superintendent, at Forge Village, Middlesex county 
Massachusetts, Mr. Ainsworth treasurer of the company, George 
Stark agent, was rebuilt and enlarged in 1854 to contain 3 heat¬ 
ing furnaces, 2 forge fires and 3 hammers driven by water, and 
makes anchor palms and carriage axles. 

2.5. Alger’s Forge, in South Boston, Suffolk county Massa¬ 
chusetts, owned by Alger and others, managed by E. Heed, has 
2 heating furnaces, 1 train of rolls and 4 hammers and made in 
1856 800 tons of forgings. 

3. Commercial Point Forge, situated four miles southeast 
of Boston, on Commercial Point, Dorchester, a furlong east of 
the Old Colony railroad, in Suffolk county Massachusetts, 
owned by Dearborn, Robinson & Co. and managed by Thomas 
Loudon, was built in 1848, has one charcoal or bloomery fire, 6 
forge fires, and 5 hammers driven by steam, and made in 1855 
about 1,450 tons of axles, steamboat cranks, etc. 

4. Holmes’ Anchor Forges, situated: No. 1, in Kingston, 
one mile southwest of Kingston Depot on the Old Colony rail¬ 
road, two miles above the mouth of the Jones river, and one 
mile above tide, in Plymouth county Massachusetts, owned 

Table C 


148 


TABLE C.—FORGES IN NEW ENGLAND. 


by Alexander Holmes of Kingston, and managed by George 
Holmes, was erected in 1792 as an edge-tool factory and turned 
to an anchor forge in 1800, has 1 charcoal fire, 4 forge fires and 
2 hammers driven by water and makes about 140 tons of an 
chors etc. per annum. 

5. Holmes’ Anchor Forge Ho. 2, situated three miles 
northwest from Ho. 1, on the north side of the Old Colony rail¬ 
road, three-quarters of a mile from Plympton station. It is the 
oldest works in the country, erected 100 years ago, and .was 
first a forge for smelting iron ore taken in the form of bog ore 
out of Jones’ pond, making poor iron, known at that day as 
Holmes’ iron. It has 1 charcoal fire, 4 forge fires and 2 hammers 
driven by water, and makes about 60 tons of anchors etc. per 
annum. 

5.5. Bridgewater Forge and Rolling Mill, Table D. 15, 
has 6 hammers. 

6. Talcott’s Forge, situated in Springfield three hundred 
yards east of the station, on the north side of the railroad to 
Worcester, owned by T. J. Talcott, Springfield Hampden county 
Massachusetts, has 1 heating furnace and 1 hammer driven by 
steam and makes perhaps 300 tons of axles and other heavy 
work per annum, out of scrap iron. 

7. Glastonbury Forge, situated seven miles below Hart¬ 
ford on the east bank of the Connecticut river, in Hartford 
county Connecticut, owned and managed by S. S. Post, was an 
old forge, and then a rolling mill; now an anchor and bar 
works. 

8. Humphreysville Forge, situated at Seymour, six miles 
above Derby, on the Haugatuck railroad in Hew Haven county 
Connecticut, owned by the Humphrey sville Manufacturing 
Company, R. French president, Mr. Seymour manager, has 9 
heating furnaces and 8 hammers, driven by water, and forges 
scrap iron into blooms and makes car axles. 

8.5. Ansonia Forge, two miles above Derby on the Hauga¬ 
tuck railroad and river, was burnt and rebuilt in 1856 by the 
Hovelty Company, has 2 heating furnaces, 2 forge hammers and 
20 finishing forge hammers and makes perhaps 300 axes per 
day. 

O 


BLOOMERY FORGES IN NEW ENGLAND. 


149 


8.6. C. Wooster’s Forge in Seymour, Connecticut, is about 

large as the last described. 

9. Ackworth Bloomery, situated in Lincoln, on New 
Haven river, thirteen miles from Yergennes city, Addison 
county Vermont, owned and managed by O. W. Burnham, was 
built in 1828, and enlarged 1843 and 1854, has 4 charcoal 
ore-fires and 2 hammers for drawing out the loups, driven by 
water, and made in 1856 550 tons of blooms. 

10. White’s Bloomery, situated on the railroad from Hut- 
land, five miles above the mouth of Otter creek, in Addison 
county Vermont, is the only one running of all the old Ver- 
gennes bloomeries. 

11. Salisbury Bloomery, in Addison county Vermont, 
owned by Israel Davey of Fairhaven, Rutland county, is old, has 
2 fires and 1 hammer driven by water and makes about 300 tons 
of blooms per annum. 

12. East Middlebury Bloomery, situated, owned, aged 
and equipped like the last, makes the same amount of blooms 
per annum. 

13. Fairhaven Bloomery, in Rutland county Vermont, 
owned, aged and equipped like the two last, makes 400 tons of 
blooms per annum. All three use Lake Champlain magnetic 
ore from Essex county New York. See Rolling Mill No. 28 
Table D. 

14. Copake Forge, situated near the Copake Furnace near 
the Copake station on Harlem railroad Dutchess county New 
York, owned by Pomeroy & Company, was built in 1851, with 
2 heating-furnaces and 5 hammers, driven by water, and made 
formerly gun iron, but latterly axles etc. out of scrap-iron, about 
160 tons per annum. 

15. Mount Riga Forges, situated near Mount Riga Fur¬ 
nace, Litchfield county Connecticut, owned by the Salisbury 
Iron Company and built in 1832, are scarcely ever in operation. 
Each forge has 1 puddling of chaffing fire, and 1 hammer 
for drawing bars and shafts, and 4 refining fires and 4 ham¬ 
mers, and 1 trip-hammer for small work, and together they 
made in 1856 perhaps 200 tons. 


C 


150 TABLE C.—FORGES IN WESTERN NEW ENGLAND. 

16. Ames’ Forge, situated lialf a mile above Falls Village 
Station, Housatonic railroad, west side of the Ilousatonic Fiver 
owned by tlie Ames Iron Company, Falls Village P.O. Salis¬ 
bury Litchfield county Connecticut, was a small forge in 1832; the 
w r o.rks have been principally enlarged in the last ten years, and 
consist of 2 double and 4 single puddling furnaces, 5 heating 
furnaces for piles and one for tyre, and 4 swedging fires, two 
Nasmyth hammers 5 and 2-| tons (6 and 3 with the dies on), 
and six heavy water-trip hammers, and makes axles, forgings of 
all kinds, connecting rods, etc. large shafts, car-axles and some 
bar-iron, in all about 800 tons per annum. 

17. Canfield & Robbins’ Forge, situated in Falls Village, 
Salisbury, in Litchfield county Connecticut, on the east side of 
the river, under the canal which was made some years ago to 
use the water of the high falls (70 feet) for a mile down the 
river and never finished, is owned by Canfield & Fobbins, 
was built in 1832, has 2 heating furnaces 1 forge fire and 
4 hammers, driven by water, and made in 1854 about 800 tons 
of axles, etc. 

18. Salisbury Centre Forge, situated near the village of 
Salisbury Centre, Litchfield county Connecticut, two miles south 
from Chapenville Furnace, near the main road from Millerton 
to Hartford, and owned by S. B. Moore & Company, has 4 
heating and refining fires and 2 large and 2 smaller ham¬ 
mers, driven by water-power, Mount Figa creek, and draws 
about 150 tons of pig iron into bars and shapes for government 
gun-w T orks. 

18,2. East Grove Forge, Lawrence, Norfolk, Connecticut. 

18.4. New Hartford Forge, Connecticut. 

18.6. B. N. Stephens Forge, West Norfolk, Connecticut. 

18.8. Old Adams Forge etc. see note on page 151. 

19. West Point Forge, situated at Cold Spring, on the 
Hudson Fiver railroad, three miles above West Point Sta¬ 
tion, and half a mile from the Cold Spring Station, on the east 
side of the railroad, in Putnam county New York, Mr. Parrot 
agent, has 3 heating furnaces, 26 fires and 3 hammers, one 
of seven tons, and forges ordnance for the United States Go- 
C 


TABLE F. -FORGES IN SOUTHERN NEW YORK. 


151 


vernment and heavy steam-engine, steamboat and machine 
work. 

20. Franklin Forge, situated near the East River, corner 
of Twenty-sixth street and First Avenue New York city, Tug- 
not, Dally & Co. has 6 heating furnaces, one Merrick & 
Towne hammer, 7 tons; two Nasmyth’s, 2-J- and 1-J tons, and 
one Kirk, and makes chiefly steam-engine heavy work, perhaps 
300 tons per annum. 

21. Tupper’s Forge, at Sixteenth street, has been out for more than 18 
months, and nothing remains there but a Merrick hammer of similar proportions to 
the Franklin’s. 

22. There is a new Forge on the North River, about Fifty-fourth street, just 
started by B. Danvers & Co. with one heavy hammer. 

22. 5. Haverstraw. —Two abandoned forges stand on the creek back of Warren 
on the west bank of the Tappan Sea), Rockland county, New York. 

23. Suffern’s. —An old abandoned forge on the Maway at Suffern’s, Rockland 
county, New York. 

24. Suffern’s Forge and Rolling Mill, situated a half mile 
west of Suffern’s station Erie railroad, owned by Andrew Win¬ 
ter, Ramapo P.O. Rockland county New York, was built about 
1849, as a bloomery with two fires and changed in 1853 to a 
rolling-mill, G 34, but has still 1 run out fire and 2 hammers, 
driven by water, and made car axles until 1856. 

25. Ramapo Iron and Steel Works, situated opposite the 
New York & Erie railroad Ramapo station, Rockland county 
J7ew York, owned by the heirs of Jeremiah G. Pierson, and 
leased by J. Wilson, was built about 1800, has 2 bloomery 
fires built in 1850 and a hammer, used for the steel works only. 
Table G, Rolling Mill 33. 

25.2. Sloat’s Forge and a forge above Sloat’s, on the Ramapo River above the 
Ramapo Works, marked on the New Jersey map, but in ruins. 

25.4. Augusta Works. —On the Ramapo, 3 miles above the Orange county line; 
a forge in ruins; not used for 50 years. 

25.6. Sterling Works. —On the head-waters of the Pequest River; three marked 
on the map not now in existence. 


There are said to be, besides those given in the table, the following forges in 
Litchfield county Connecticut: East Grove, Lawrence, Norfolk. New Hartford. N. B. 
Stephens’s Forge, West Norfolk. Old Adams Forge, near Beckley Furnace (Tab. B. 
lo), owned by George Adams, and started by Mr. Forbes. 


Table F 


152 


TABLE F.—BLOOMERIES IN NORTHERN NEW JERSEY. 


25.3 Old Ringwood Forge. —In the village of Ringwood, on the Pequest 
River, miles below the State, 31 miles from Sloat’s Station, E. R. R.; in ruins. 
Made its last iron about 1822. 

26. Ringwood Bloomery six miles west of the New lork 
and Erie railroad Sloat’s station, at Boardville on the Pequest, 
owned by the Trenton Iron Company and managed by Philip 
R. George, Boardville P.O. Passaic county New Jersey, is very 
old and was built with Longpond Bloomery by Baron Hass 
before the Revolution, has 2 fires and 1 hammer, driven by 
water, and has made about 400 tons of blooms per annum, out 
of magnetic ore from mines one mile west of Ringwood. 

26. Long Pond Bloomery, three miles northwest of the 
Ringwood Bloomery last described and owned and managed by 
the same, was built at the same time, has 4 fires and 2 ham¬ 
mers, driven by water, and makes about 800 tons of blooms per 
annum out of the same ore. 

28. Paterson Iron Works, a Forge situated half a mile 
south of the station on the east side of the railroad, owned by 
the Paterson Iron Company, F. C. Beckwfith treasurer, S. Jaqua 
superintendent, Paterson P.O. Passaic county New Jersey, w T as 
built in 1852, has 4 forge fires, 4 heating furnaces and 4 ham¬ 
mers, driven by steam, and made in 1854 378 tons of tyres and 
520 tons of other forgings, out of some American blooms and 
500 tons of English bar. 

29. Bloomingdale Bloomery on the Pequannock river, 
five miles above Pompton and thirteen miles northwest of the 
New York and Erie railroad Paterson s + ation, owned by Martin 
J. Ryerson, Bloomingdale P.O. Passaic county New Jersey, 
was built about 1800, rebuilt in 1839 and again in 1841, has 4 
fires and 2 hammers, driven by water, and made in 1855 255 
tons of bars and fagot iron for shafts and boiler plate, out of 
Ringwood ore. 

29.5. Freeland’s Bloomery, one mile above the last, has disappeared within 
a few years. 

30. Smith’s Bloomery and Anchor Shop, on the Pequan¬ 
nock river, sixteen miles northwest of the New York and Erie 
railroad Paterson station, three miles above Bloomingdale, 
owned by G. & T. Smith, Bloomingdale P.O. Passaic countv 
New Jersey, was built a century ago, disappeared entirely and 
F 


BLOOMERY FORGES IN NEW JERSEY. 


153 


was rebuilt in 1847, lias 1 bloomery and 2 forge fires and 1 
hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 52 tons of anchors 
and bars, out of Pingwood and similar magnetic ores. 

30.5. Two Forges, between Smith’s and Charlottenburg, existed at the time the 
Loudon Company owned the Ringwood, Long Pond, Charlottenburg, and Mount 
Hope Works. 

31. Charlottenburg Bloomery on the Pequannock river, 
in Passaic county New Jersey, nineteen miles northwest of the 
New York and Erie railroad Paterson station, eight miles above 
Bloomingdale, owmed by George H. Penton of Newark, and 
managed by C. F. D’Camp, was built in 1840 on the site of an 
old furnace, has 4 bloomery and 2 forge fires, 2 hammers, is 
driven by water, and made in 1854, 300 tons of bar iron. 

32. Turner’s Anchor Forge, situated twenty-four miles 
northwest of the New York and Erie railroad Paterson station, 
owned by John Turner, Stockholm P.O. Passaic county New 
Jersey, and built about 1825, has 1 bloomery and 2 forge fires 
and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 70 tons of 
anchors. 

33. Stockholm Bloomery, situated twenty-five miles north¬ 
west of the New York and Erie railroad Paterson station, on 
the Pequannock river, owned by Horace Ford Stockholm P.O. 
Passaic county New Jersey, and built about 1790, has 1 fire 
and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 80 tons of 
blooms out of Pingwood magnetic ore. 

34. Methodist Bloomery, situated on the Pequannock 
river, twenty-five miles northwest of the New York and Erie 
railroad Paterson station, owned by John Lewis, Stockholm 
P.O. Passaic county New Jersey, built about 1780 and rebuilt 
in 1850, has 1 fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made 
in 1856 80 tons of blooms, out of Pingwood magnetic ore. 

35. Herring-bone Bloomery and Anchor Shop, situated 
on the Pequannock river in Passaic county New Jersey, twenty- 
five miles northwest of the New York and Erie railroad Paterson 
station, owned by James Poss of Newark and leased by J. 
Lewis, built about 1800 and rebuilt in 1857, has 2 forge fires 
and 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1854 97 tons of 
anchors, out of Pingwood magnetic ore. 

F 


154 


TABLE F.—BLOOMERY FORGES IN NEW JERSEY. 


36. Windham Bloomery, half a mile above the last, owned 
by Edward Ford of Morristown, and leased by Edward Kincaid, 
built about 1790 and rebuilt in 1849, has 2 fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water and made in 1855 235 tons of blooms, out of 
Ringwood magnetic ore. 

37. Stoney Brook Bloomery, situated on Stoney Brook, 
ten miles northeast of the Morris and Essex railroad, Rockaway 
station, seven miles due west of Pompton, owned by J. W. 
Earles, Bronton P.O. Morris county Hew Jersey, built about 
1822 and rebuilt about 1849, has 1 fire and 1 hammer, driven 
by water and made in 1856 80 tons of blooms, out of Mount 
Hope, Hibernia and Ringwood magnetic ores. 

38. Decker’s Rockaway Valley Bloomery, situated on 
Stoney Brook, is six miles east-nortlieast of the Morris and Essex 
railroad, Rockaway station, three miles north of Powerville, 
owned by John and James Decker, Boonton P.O. Morris county 
Hew Jersey, and built about 1846, has 1 fire and 1 hammer, 
driven by water, and has made about 50 tons of blooms and 
bars per annum out of Hibernia and Mount Hope magnetic 
ores. 

39. Dixon’s Rockaway Valley Bloomery, situated on 
Middle Brook, five miles northeast of the Morris and Essex 
railroad, Rockaway station, one mile and a quarter north of 
Powerville, owned by William M. & Cyrus Dixon, Boonton 
P.O. Morris county Hew Jersey, built in 1827 and rebuilt about 
1S44, has 1 fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and has made 
about 50 tons of bars per annum out of Allen and Hibernia 
magnetic ores. 

40. Powerville Bloomery, situated in Powerville, four 
miles east of Rockaway station on the canal and river, owned 
by T. C. Willis, Boonton P.O. Morris county Hew Jersey, and 
built about 1853, has 2 bloomery and 2 forge fires and 1 ham¬ 
mer, driven by water, and has made about 200 tons of axle 
bars per annum, out of Hibernia magnetic ore. 

41. Old Boonton Bloomery, situated on Rockaway river, 
six miles east of Rockaway, owned by Charles A. Richter, 
Boonton P.O. Morris county Hew Jersey, and built in 1853, has 
2 fires and 1 hammer, and makes bars for the Dover Rolling 

F 


BLOOMERY FORGES IN NEW JERSEY. 


155 


Mill out of Allen’s magnetic ore. It was a slitting and rolling 
mill about 1790. 

42. Troy Bloomery, situated on Parcipany river, six miles 
east-southeast of Rockaway, and eight miles northeast of Mor¬ 
ristown, via Littleton and Parcipany, and owned by Smith & 
Cobb, Parcipany P.O. Morris county New Jersey, is as old as 
Oxford, has 1 fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and has made 
about 40 tons of bars per annum out of Hibernia and Allen 
magnetic ores. 

43. Durham Bloomery, situated at the head of Beaver 
brook, three miles south of Charlottenburg, and eight miles 
north-northeast of Rockaway station, owned by Crane’s heirs, 
William Dixon administrator, Rockaway Yalley Forge P.O. 
Morris county New Jersey, was built about 1811, has 1 fire and 
1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856, about 60 tons 
of blooms out of Allen magnetic ore. 

44. Splitrock Bloomery, situated at the foot of Beaver 
Lake, five miles north-northeast of Rockaway station, owned by 
Andrew B. Cobb, Parcipany P.O. Morris county New Jersey, 
was built about 1790, rebuilt about 1837, has 2 fires and 1 ham¬ 
mer, driven by water and made in 1856 perhaps 150 tons of 
slabs out of Lyonsville magnetic ore. 

45. Stickel’s Meriden Bloomery, situated on Beaver 
Brook, three miles south of Splitrock Bloomery last described 
and four miles northeast of Rockaway station is owned by 
Charles Stickel, Rockaway P.O. Morris county New Jersey, was 
built in 1790 and rebuilt in 1840, has 1 forge fire and 1 ham-, 
mer, driven by water, and has made about 25 tons of bars and 
blooms per annum chiefly out of Allen’s magnetic ore. 

46. Richter’s Meriden Bloomery, situated near Stickel’s 
last described, and held by George E. Richter, executor, Rock¬ 
away P.O. Morris county New Jersey, was built in 1820, has 1 
fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1855 88£ 
tons of fagot bars out of Allen’s and Mt. Hope magnetic 
ores. 

47. Beach Glen Bloomery, situated on the west branch 
of Beaver run, two miles west by south of the Meriden forges, 

F 


156 


TABLE F.—BLOOMERY FORGES IN NEW JERSEY. 


and three miles north of Rockaway railroad station, owned by 
C. & S. S. Black, Rockaway P.O. Morris county New Jersey, 
was built in 1760 and rebuilt in 1856, has 2 fires and 1 hammer, 
driven by water, and has made about 120 tons of blooms and 
bars per annum out of Hibernia, Beech’s and Allen’s magnetic 
ores. 

48. Rockaway Steel Forge, situated at Rockaway Morris 
county New Jersey, on the Morris and Essex railroad, and 
owned by the Rockaway Iron and Steel Co. was built in 1805 
and converted into a steel mill in 1855, has 5 converting fires, 
and 3 hammers, driven by water, and made in 1856 100 tons of 
cast steel out of iron and ore. 

49. Bloomery Forge, situated at Rockaway, on the canal 
railroad and river, owned by S. B. Halsey, leased by Isaac H. 
Stickle, Morris county New Jersey, built about 1790 and rebuilt 
in 1857, has 2 fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made 
in 1851 180 tons of bars out of Allen’s magnetic ore. 

50. Denmark Anchor Bloomery, situated on the east 
fork of Burnt Meadow Brook, and seven miles north of Rock¬ 
away, via Mount Hope, owned by E. R. Biddle, 35 Wall street 
New York city, and leased by E. W. Temple, Berkshire Valley 
P.O. Morris county New Jersey, built about 1800 and rebuilt 
in 1853, has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and 
has made perhaps 20 tons of anchors per annum, out of Mount 
Hope magnetic ore. 

51. Middle Bloomery, situated down Burnt Meadow 
Brook one mile from Denmark furnace and six miles northwest 
of Rockaway, via Mount Hope, owned by George E. Richter, 
Rockaway P.O. Morris county New Jersey, built about 1810, 
rebuilt in 1848, has 2 fires and 1 hammer, is driven by water, 
and made in 1856 170 tons of bars out of Allen, Mount Hope 
and Mount Pleasant magnetic ores. 

51.4. JEtna Forge, built about the time of the Revolution, stood within a few 
yards of the site of the Middle Bloomery last described, and was washed away before 
Middle Bloomery was built. 

51.5. Mount Pleasant Forge, three miles from Dover and two miles below 
Berkshire Valley, belongs to Joseph Hulf, has not run since 1850 and is nearly in 
ruins. 

F 


BLOOMERY FORGES IN NEW JERSEY. 


157 


52. Washington Bloomery, situated five miles west of 
Rockaway, on the Morris and Essex railroad, is owned by 
Henry McFarlane, Dover P.O. Morris county Hew Jersey, was 
built about 1850 has 2 fires and 1 hammer driven by water, 
and made in 1856 141 tons of bars. 

53. Valley Bloomery, situated on the Rockaway river, seven 
miles west of Rockaway station, owned by Jeremiah Baker and 
leased and managed by H. Baker, Dover P.O. Morris county 
Hew Jersey, was built about 17S0, rebuilt in 1814 and again in 
1828, has 1 fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 
1855 32 tons of bars and blooms out of Saccasunna magnetic 
ore. 

(Four forges are marked on the map above Valley Forge on the river, but none 
are known now to exist, until we get up to Lower Longwood. About three-quar¬ 
ters of a mile below it was a forge before Lower Longwood was built. No one 
knows of there having ever been forges at Berkshire Valley P.O.) 

54. Lower Longwood Anchor Bloomery, situated four 
miles above Valley Forge, and three miles north of Berkshire 
valley P.O. Morris county Hew Jersey, on the turnpike, ten 
miles northwest of Rockaway, owned by C. McFarlan leased by 
E. W. Temple, built perhaps as long ago as 1800, has 2 forge 
fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 85 tons 
of anchors out of Allen, Hopewell & Weldon magnetic ores. 

55. Upper Longwood Anchor Bloomery, situated eleven 
miles northwest of Rockaway, via the turnpike, owned by C. O. 
Halsted of Hew York and leased by Hichols & Fichter, Berk¬ 
shire valley P.O. Morris county Hew Jersey, and built perhaps 
as early as 1800, uses 2 of its 4 forge fires and 2 hammers, driven 
bv water, and made in 1856 50 tons of anchors out of Allen 
magnetic ore. 

56. Hard Bargain Bloomery, situated a half mile south¬ 
east of Petersburg, and thirteen miles north of Rockaway, owned 
by Stephen Strait, Millin P.O. Morris county Hew Jersey, and 
built in 1790, uses one of its 2 bloomery fires, has 1 hammer, 
driven by water, and made about 30 tons of blooms per annum 
mostly out of Allen magnetic ore. 

5 7. Petersburg Bloomery, situated four miles north of Up¬ 
per Longwood Furnace, and fourteen miles north of Rockaway, 

F 


158 


TABLE F.—BLOOMERY FORGES IN NEW JERSEY. 


via the turnpike, owned by Lewis Chamberlain, Milton P.O. 
Morris county New Jersey, and built in 1725, rebuilt in 1850, 
has 2 fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 
60 tons of bars out of Allen, Ringwood & Ogden magnetic 
ores. 

58. Swedeland Bloomery, situated at the west end of 
Milton village in Morris county New Jersey, fifteen miles north 
of Rockaway, owned by Col. J. H. Stanborrough, and built in 
1801, uses one of its 2 fires with 1 hammer, driven by water, 
and made in 1854 30 tons of blooms out of Ogden, Allen & 
Succasunna magnetic ores. 

59. Russia Bloomery, situated two miles above Milton, 
seventeen miles north of Rockaway, owned by Frederic W. 
Fichter, Milton Morris county New Jersey, built about 1775, 
rebuilt in 1846 has 1 fire and 1 hammer, driven by water 
and made in 1856 35 tons of blooms out of Oakhill magnetic 
ore. 

60. Hopewell Bloomery, situated eighteen miles north of 
Rockaway, via the turnpike, owned by John G. Harrison, New¬ 
foundland P.O. Morris county New Jersey, built about 1780, 
rebuilt in 1830, has 2 fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, and 
has made about 100 tons of plate slabs out of Oakhill magnetic 
ore. 

61. Canistear Bloomery, situated on the Pacack Brook, in 
Sussex county, three miles north of Stockholm, and twenty 
miles north of Rockaway, via Charlottenburg, Sussex county 
New Jersey, owned by Christian D. Hay, Stockholm P.O. Mor¬ 
ris county, built in 1796, rebuilt in 1832, has 1 fire and 1 ham¬ 
mer, driven by water and made in 1855 75 tons of blooms and 
bars, out of Ogden, Ringwood, Allen & Mount Hope magnetic 
ores. 

62. Sparta (Decker’s) Anchor Bloomery, one half mile 
below Sparta centre (on the Rockaway and Milford turnpike) 
fifteen miles northwest of Rockaway, owned by James & James 
L. Dicker, Sparta, Sussex county New Jersey, built in 1823, 
rebuilt in 1856, has 1 bloomery and 2 forge fires and 2 ham¬ 
mers, driven by water, and made in 1856 40 tons of anchors 
out of Ogden magnetic ore. 

F 


BLOOMERY FORGES IN NEW JERSEY. 


159 


63. Eagle Anchor Blomery, situated a little southeast of 
the village of Sparta, and fifteen miles northwest of Rockaway 
near the turnpike, owned by Lewis Sherman, Sparta, Sussex 
county New Jersey, built in 1821, rebuilt in 1838, has 1 bloom- 
ery and 3 forge fires and 2 hammers, driven by water and 
made in 1856 37 tons of anchors of magnetic ore. 

64. Morris Anchor Works, No. 1, situated at the outlet of 
Norman’s pond one mile east of Sparta, and sixteeen miles 
northwest of Rockaway, owned by Richard R. Morris, Sparta 
P. O. Sussex county New Jersey, has 2 forge fires and 1 ham¬ 
mer, driven by water, and together with Morris Anchor Works 
No. 2, made in 1856 90 tons of anchors. 

65. Morris Anchor Works, No. 2, situated one mile below 
No. 1, on By ram’s mill brook, owned by Richard R. Morris, 
Sparta Sussex county New Jersey, uses one of its 2 bloomery 
fires with 1 hammer, driven by water, and together with No. 1 
made in 1856 90 tons of anchors, of magnetic ores. 

66. Columbia Anchor Bloomery, situated on Lubber Run 
seven miles southwest of Sparta, and four miles north of Stan¬ 
hope, owned by Sutton’s heirs, leased by St. Lyon, Sparta P.O. 
Sussex county New Jersey, bnilt about 1800, has 2 forge fires, 
1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 40 tons of an¬ 
chors out of magnetic ore. 

67. Roseville Bloomery, situated on Lubber Run, one mile 
south of Columbia Bloomery last described and owned by Rose 
& Byerley, Stanhope P.O. Sussex county New Jersey, built in 
1828, uses one of its 2 bloomery fires with 1 hammer, driven by 
water, and made in 1856 64 tons of bars out of magnetic ore. 

68. Lockwood Bloomery, situated on Lubber Run, three 
miles below Roseville Bloomery last described and one mile 
and a half northwest of Stanhope, owned by Joralemon & 
Howell, Stanhope P.O. Sussex county New Jersey, built in 
1857, has 2 bloomery and 2 forge fires, with 2 hammers driven 
by water, and makes anchors out of Saccasuny magnetic ore. 

69. New Andover Bloomery, situated on Musconetcong 
river one and a half mile from Waterloo Railroad station and 
one mile and a half west of Stanhope, owned by Gen. J. Smith, 

F 


160 


TABLE F.—FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


Waterloo P.O. Sussex county New Jersey, built in 1801, rebuilt 
in 1857, uses one of its 2 fires witli 1 hammer driven by water, 
and made in 1856 35 tons of blooms and bars, out of Dickerson 
magnetic ore. 

70. Shippensport Bloomery on the canal, three miles east 
of Stanhope, and near Drakesville Morris and Essex railroad 
station, owned by John Slade of New York city, was built 
about 1813 and rebuilt in ’17, uses 2 of its 1 bloomery fires with 
1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 60 tons of 
boiler blooms out of Hibernia and Byron blue magnetic ore. 

71. Mount Olive Forge, situated three miles below the 
outlet of the South Branch Baritan river from Budd’s Lake, 
and six miles south of Stanhope, owned by William Stephens, 
Drakestown P.O. Morris county New Jersey, has 1 fire and 1 
hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 70 tons of bars of 
all kinds. 

72. Bartleyville Bloomery, the oldest in this neighbor¬ 
hood, situated one mile below Mount Olive last described and 
six miles south of Stanhope, Morris county New Jersey, owned 
by Gideon Salmon, Flanders P.O. built in 1790, rebuilt in 1849, 
uses one of its 2 bloomery fires and 1 forge fire, with 1 hammer, 
driven by water, and made in 1854 40 tons of rivet-bar, out of 
magnetic ore. 

73. Welsh’s (old Petersburg) Bloomery, situated one 
mile below Bartleyville, and six miles south of Stanhope, owned 
by Jacob S. Welsh’s heirs, leased by H. Tice, Chester P.O. 
Morris county New Jersey, built in 1800, rebuilt in 1820 has 2 
fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 70 tons 
of bars and blooms out of Dickerson magnetic ore. 

74. Budd’s Bloomery, No. 1, situated on Black river, 
three miles southwest of Chester, and eleven miles south of Stan¬ 
hope, owned by Daniel Budd and managed by E. Day, Chester 
P.O. Morris county New Jersey, built in 1850, rebuilt in 1856, 
has 2 bloomery and 1 forge fire with 1 hammer, driven by 
water, and made in 1856 190 tons of boiler blooms, out of 
Budd’s magnetic ore. 

75. Budd’s Bloomery No. 2, situated three-quarters of a 
mile below No. 1, has the same owner and manager, 2 bloomerv 

F 


FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


161 


and 1 forge fire witli 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1856 30 tons of bars and blooms, out of the same ore. 

75.5. Bristol Forge, situated on tlie Delaware Division 
Canal, in the northern part of Bristol, Bucks county, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, owned by tlie Bristol Forge Company, managed by 
Herman L. Strong, was built about 1844, and lias 3 hammers 
(one Nasmyth), and makes shafts, axles and forgings out of 
scrap iron altogether. 

76. Oxford Steel and Iron Forge, situated in the twenty- 
third ward of Philadelphia, and owned by W. & H. Howland 
(No. 61 South Second street), was built in 1842, has 4 heating 
furnaces, 2 hammers driven by steam, and made in 1856 626 
tons of blooms. 

77. Norris’s Forge, situated in Philadelphia on 17th street 
above Callowhill, owned by Bichard Norris & Son, and man¬ 
aged by M. Sevank, has 2 heating furnaces, 2 hammers, driven 
by steam, and made in 1856 600 tons of finished work. 

78. Fairhill Forge, situated in Philadelphia, in the nine' 
teenth ward, and owned by Patterson, Morgan & Caskey on the 
North Pennsylvania Bailroad, above York road, was built in 
1856, has 1 heating furnace and 2 hammers driven by steam, 
and made in 1856 127 tons of shafting. 

79. Verree’s Works, situated in Philadelphia, on the North 
Delaware Avenue, above Poplar street and owned by Yerree 
& Mitchell, was built in 1856, has 2 heating furnaces and 1 
hammer, driven by steam, and made in 1856 about 350 tons of 
scrap-blooms. 

SO. Flat-Rock Forge, situated in Manayunk, seven miles northwest of Phila¬ 
delphia, owned by M. B. Buckley & Son, Manayunk, Philadelphia county, and built 
in 1850, has 6 forge fires and 1 hammer, is driven by steam and water, and made 
in 1856 about 700 tons of blooms. This Forge was torn down in the winter of 
1857-8, and removed to the new Rolling Mill at Gray’s Ferry, below Philadelphia. 
See Table G. 

81. Pencoyd Forge, situated on the west side of Schuyl¬ 
kill, six miles northwest of Philadelphia, Montgomery county 
and half a mile below Manayunk, is owned by A. & P. Boberts, 
Philadelphia, was built in 1852, has 1 forge fire and 2 ham¬ 
mers, is driven by steam, and made in 1855 314 tons of axles 
and bars. 




11 


F 


162 


TABLE F.—FOEGES IN EAETEEN PENNSYLVANIA, 


82. Green Lane Forge, situated on Perkiomen creek, 
twenty miles north of Morristown, owned by William Schall, 
Norristown, Montgomery county Pennsylvania, leased by 
Smith & Brother, managed by James Smith, built in 1733, has 
3 forge fires and two hammers, is driven by water, and made in 
1856 180 tons of blooms and bars. 

83. Glasgow Forge, situated on the Manatawny creek,- 
one mile north of Pottstown, owned by J. Rittenhouse, Potts- 
town P.O. Montgomery county Pennsylvania, and leased and 
managed by Joseph Potts, was built about 1750, uses 2 of its 3 
forge fires and 2 hammers, is driven by water, and made in 
1856 300 tons of blooms. 

84. Mount Pleasant Forge (formerly Fish’s), situated on 
the northwest branch of Perkiomen creek, fourteen miles north 
of Pottstown, is owned by Samuel W. Weiss, Colebrookdale, 
Washington township, Berks county Pennsylvania, was built in 
1799, has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer, is driven by water, and 
made in 1856 50 tons of blooms and 63 tons of bars. 

85. District Forge, No. 1, situated twenty miles east of 
Beading, and owned by Horace Trexler, Pike township, Berks 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1797, has 2 forge fires and 1 
hammer, is driven by water, and made in 1854 60 tons of 
blooms and 50 tons of bars. 

86. District Forge, No. 2, situated on Pine creek, six miles 
north-northeast of Douglassville, owned by Francis Heilig, Lau- 
bachsville P.O. Berks county Pennsylvania, was built in 1800, 
has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer, is driven by water, and made 
in 1856 200 tons of blooms and 20 tons of bars. 

87. Rockland Forge, No. 1, situated six miles southeast of 
Kutztown and owned by Mr. Malenshaffer, Laubachsville P.O. 
Berks county, w r as built in 1788, has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer, 
is driven by water, and made in 1854 75 tons of blooms. 

88. Rockland Forge, No. 2, situated six miles southeast of 
Kutztown and owned by William Herbst, Laubachsville P.O. 
Bockland township, Berks county, was built in 1790, has 1 forge 
fire and 1 hammer, is driven by water, and made in 1855 300 
tons of blooms. 

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FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


163 


89. Oley Forge, situated on Manatawny creek, two miles 
east of Friedensburg, and twelve miles east of Reading, and 
owned by Jacob S. Spang, Spangville Manatawny, Berks 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1780, has 2 forge fires and 1 
hammer, is driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 200 tons 
of blooms. 

90. Spring Forge, situated on the Manatawny creek, five 
miles west by north of Douglassville, and owned by Bertolet & 
Darrah, Earl township, Berks county Pennsylvania, was built in 
1795, has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer, is driven by water, and 
made in 1856 about 250 tons of blooms. 

91. Dale Forge, situated in the Eisenthal or Bon Dale, on 
the stage road from Pottstown sixteen miles east of Reading, 
and owned by David Schall, Dale Forge P.O. Berks county 
Pennsylvania, was built in 1803, has 3 forge fires and 2 ham¬ 
mers, is driven by water and made in 1856 about 150 tons of 
bars chiefly. 

92. Speedwell Forge, No. 1, situated two miles east of 
Reading, owned by David Yocum, Speedwell Forge P.O. Berks 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1809, has 2 forge fires and 1 
hammer, is driven by water, and made in 1856 about 25 tons of 
blooms and 100 tons of bars. 

93. Speedwell Forge, No. 2, situated two miles east of 
Reading and owned by M. Yocum & Strockh, Speedwell Forge 
P.O. Berks county Pennsylvania, was built in 1825, has 2 forge 
fires and 1 hammer, is driven by water, and made in 1856 about 
the same as No. 1. 

94. Exeter Forge, situated on Antietam creek, four miles 
north of Birdsborough, five miles east of Reading, owned by 
Gottlieb Moyer & Daniel Yocum and managed by Daniel 
Yocum, Reading P.O. Berks county Pennsylvania, built in 1836, 
has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer, driven by water and made in 
1856 251J tons of blooms. 

95. Seidel’s Forge, situated north of the Pike, and four 
miles east of Reading, o Kmed by Himmelshutz & Seidel, leased 
and managed by S. C. Seidel, Reading P.O. Berks county 
Pennsylvania, was built in 1853, has 1 forge fire and 2 hammers, 
is driven by water and made in 1856 100 tons of scrap bars. 


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164 


TABLE F.—FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


96. Keystone Forge and Rolling Mill, situated in Read¬ 
ing at the corner of Pine and Second streets, is owned by Snell, 
Mullen, Banford & McCarty, Reading Berks county, was built 
in 1854, has 2 heating furnaces and 2 hammers, is driven by 
steam, and made in 1856 350 tons of axles and shafts. 

97. Reading Steam Forge, situated in Reading, Fostliock- 
ley Lane and Eighth street, owned by Reading Steam Forge 
Company, Reading Berks county, and managed by Wesley M. 
Lee, was built in 1857, has 3 puddling fires, 4 heating furnaces 
and 4 hammers, is driven by steam and made in 1856 say 1,000 
tons of heavy forgings. 

98. Franklin Forge (Old Rip Rap), situated on Alleghany 
creek, half a mile west of the Schuylkill, 5 miles east of Read¬ 
ing, owned by J. & H. Thompson, Robinson P.O. Berks county, 
built in 1837, has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer, driven by water 
and made in 1856 200 tons of fiat blooms. 

99. Gibraltar Forge, FTo. 1, situated six miles south of 
Reading, on Alleghany creek, quarter of a mile above the Roll¬ 
ing Mill, owned by H. A. & S. Seyfert of Reading, Berks 
county, built in 1846, has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer, driven by 
water, and in 1856 made 250 tons of blooms. 

100. Gibraltar Forge, No. 2, situated six miles south of 
Reading on Alleghany creek, half a mile above the Rolling 
Mill, owned by H. A. & S. Seyfert of Reading, Berks county, 
has 3 forge fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, and in 1856 
made 275 tons of blooms. 

101. Do Well Forges, situated six miles south of Reading, 
on the small stream next south of Alleghany creek and quarter 
of a mile apart, owned by J. & J. B. Seidel and managed by 
Reuben Seidel, Reading Berks county, built in 1825, have 2 
forge fires and 2 hammers, driven by water, and in 1856 made 
200 tons of blooms and 120 of bars. 

102. Coventry Forge, situated at Coventry Village, on 
Rock Run, six miles southwest of Pottstown, owned by George 
Christman, Pughtown, Chester county, leased to J. Bingham, 
built in 1750, has 3 forge fires and 1 hammei driven by water, 
and in 1855 made 352 tons of blooms. 

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FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


165 


103. Isabella Forge (formerly Furnace), situated sixteen 
miles south of Pottstown, and nine miles north of Coatesville 
on the waters of the West Branch Brandywine, owned by John 
Irey and James Butler, Loag P.O. Chester county, built in 1853, 
has 4 forge fires and 1 hammer driven by steam and water and 
in 1856 made 560 tons of blooms. 

104. Springton Forge, situated seven miles north of Down- 
ingtown, on East (main) Branch of Brandywine, on the Wilming- 
ton-Beading State Boad, owned by John Carnog and A. P. 
Mellvaine, Wallace P.O. Chester county, built in 1790, has 3 
forge fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and in 1855 made 
240 tons of blooms. 

105. Mary Ann Forge, situated two miles north of Down- 
ingtown, on the North Branch Brandywine and five miles below 
Springtown, owned by William Dowlin, Downington P.O. Ches¬ 
ter county, built in 1785, has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer driven 
by water and in 1855 made 155 tons of blooms. 

106. Hibernia Forge (and Rolling Mill), situated four 
miles north of Coatesville on the West Brandywine, owned by 
Charles Brooke, Wagontown, Chester county, built in 1792, has 
$ forge fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and in 1855 made 
162 tons of blooms. 

107. Greenwood Forge (formerly Furnace), situated one 
quarter of a mile north of Penningtoiwille, owned by George 
Buckley & Brothers, Penningtonville, Chester county, leased 
by Latta & Baker and managed by J. Lightfoot, built in 1844, 
has 4 forge fires and 1 hammer, and in 1856 made 196 tons of 
blooms. 

108. Pleasant Garden Forge (and Rolling Mill), situated five miles southeast 
of Oxford on the Brandywine and two miles southwest of New London Cross Roads, 
owned by D. McConkey and James Painter, Westchester, Chester county, built in 
1806, has 4 forge fires and 1 hammer, and made annually about 150 tons of boiler 
blooms. It is in ruins. 

109. Poole Forge, situated twenty miles northeast of Lan¬ 
caster, on Conestoga creek, west of Church town, owned by J. 
O. Blight, Churchtown P.O. Lancaster county, built about in 
1760, rebuilt in 1833, has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer driven by 
water and in 1855 made 275 tons of blooms. 

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166 


TABLE F.—FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


110. Windsor Forges, situated twenty miles northeast of 
Lancaster on Conestoga creek and one quarter of a mile south 
of Churchtown, owned by David Jenkins’ Heirs, Windsor Fur¬ 
nace P.O. Lancaster county, and leased to Jacob Jamieson, 
built about in 1745 (swept away in 1822), has 4 forge fires and 
2 hammers driven by water and in 1856 made say 350 tons of 
blooms. 

111. Spring Grove Forge, situated twenty miles northeast 
of Lancaster, on Conestoga creek, three miles west of Poole 
Forge, owned by William Boyd Jacobs, Churchtown P.O. Lan¬ 
caster county, built in 1793, has 3 forge fires and 2 hammers 
driven by water and in 1854 made 468 tons of blooms. 

112. Brooke Forge, situated three miles northwest of Gap 
station, on Pequea creek one mile northwest of Pequea P.O. 
owned by G. W. Bulkley, Pequea P.O. Lancaster county, built 
in 1795, rebuilt 1820, has 3 forge fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and in 1856 made 15 tons of blooms and 50 of bars. 

113. Sadsbury Forge, Ho. 1, situated two and a half miles 
from Penningtonville, on Octorara creek, owned by Charles H. 
Sproul, Bingwood P.O. Lancaster county, leased to C. Cloud, 
built in 1800, has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer driven by water, 
and makes annually in connection with Forge Ho. 2, about 250 
tons of blooms. 

114. Sadsbury Forge, Ho. 2, situated half a mile east of 
Sadsbury Ho. 1, on Octorara creek, owned by Charles H. Sproul, 
Bingwood P.O. Lancaster county, leased to C. Cloud, built in 
1802, has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer driven by water and 
makes annually in connection with Ho. 1, about 250 tons of 
blooms. 

115. Ringwood Forge, situated three miles from Penning¬ 
ton ville, on Octorara creek, owned by James Sproul’s heirs, 
Bingwood Forge P.O. Lancaster county and leased to C. Cloud, 
built in 1810 and rebuilt 1854, has 3 forge fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and in 1856 made 234 tons of blooms. 

116. Pinegrove Forge (and Rolling Mill), situated six¬ 
teen miles south of Penningtonsville, owned by Enos Pennock, 
Hopewell Cotton Works P.O. Lancaster county, built about 1800 

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FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


167 


and rebuilt in 1838, has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and in 1854 made 247 tons of blooms. 

117. White Rock Forge, situated south of Pennington- 
ville on the west branch of Octorara creek, and one and a half 
miles northeast of Oakshade Post-office, owned by James 
Sproul’s heirs, Whiterock Forge P.O. Lancaster county, built in 
1829, has 4 forge fires and 2 hammers driven by water, and in 
1854 made 359 tons of blooms. 

118. Octorara Forge (and Rolling Mill), situated eight 
miles north of Port Deposit, on Octorara creek, four miles above 
its mouth just inside the Maryland State Line, owned by Parke 
& Son Rising-Sun, Cecil county Maryland, built about in 1810, 
has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer driven by water, made annually 
200 tons of blooms, and is to be abandoned. 

119. Colemanville Forge (Rolling Mill and Steel Fur¬ 
naces), situated twelve miles southwest of Lancaster, on the 
Pequea creek, fifteen miles south of Columbia, owned by G. D. 
Coleman, Colemansville, Lancaster county, managed by Maris 
Hoopes, built in 1828, has 4 forge fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and in 1856 made 633 tons of blooms. 

120. Martic Forge (and Steel Furnace), situated three- 
quarters of a mile east of Colemansville, owned by George 
Steele, Colemansville Lancaster county, built in 1755 and re¬ 
built about 1842, has 4 forge fires and 2 (?) hammers driven by 
water and in 1856 made 562f tons of blooms. 

121. Castlefin Forge and Rolling Mill, situated sixteen 
miles northwest of Port Deposit, and thirty miles from York, 
owned by R. W. & W. Coleman, Lebanon or Castlefin P.O. 
York county, managed by S. M. Reynolds, built in 1810 and 
rebuilt in 1827, has 3 forge fires and 1 hammer worked by wa¬ 
ter, and makes annually about 500 tons of blooms. 

122. Woodstock Forge (and Foundry), situated five 
miles south of Wrightsville, on Cabin branch, one mile west of 
Tidewater Canal, owned by Himes & Hahn, Margaretta Fur¬ 
nace P.O. York county, and managed by Thomas Himes, built 
in 1828, has 5 forge fires and 2 hammers worked by water, and 
made in 1856 perhaps 600 tons of blooms and 100 tons of bars. 

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168 


TABLE F.—FORGES EST EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


123. Spring Forge, York county, built in 1770 had 2 forge fires and 2 ham¬ 
mers worked by water, and is now abandoned. 

124. Baltimore Steam Forge (and Bar Iron Rolling 
Mill), situated in Baltimore, near Philadelphia railroad station 
owned by Fageley, Ileird & Co. City Block, Baltimore, Mary¬ 
land, built in 1856, has 1 heating fire and 2 hammers, one a 
Nasmyth’s, worked by steam, and in 1856 made 280 tons of car 
axles. 

125. Bushkill Forge, situated half a mile west of Easton, 
on the Bushkill creek, owned by Simple & Swinney, Easton, 
North Hampton county, has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer worked 
by water, and in 1856 made 125 tons of bars. 

126. Maiden Creek Forge, situated five miles east of 
Hamburg, on Maiden creek, and twenty miles north of Bead¬ 
ing and twenty-three miles west of Allentown, owned by George 
Merkle & Co. Leonardsville P.O. Berks county, managed by 
George Bimsel, built in 1828, has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer 
worked by steam, and in 1856 made perhaps 40 tons of bars. 

127. Mount Airy Forge, situated ten miles west of Ham¬ 
burg, on the Northkill creek, fourteen miles from Pottsville, 
owned by Joseph Seyfert, Mount Airy P.O. Berks county, man¬ 
aged by George Bimsel, built in 1840, has two forge fires and 1 
hammer worked by water, and in 1856 made about 300 tons of 
blooms. 

12B. Northkill Forge, situated eight miles west of Ham¬ 
burg, on the Northkill creek, and six miles north of Bernville, 
owned by Joseph Seyfert, Schartlesville P.O. Berks county, 
built in 1830, has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer worked by water 
and in 1854 made 150 tons of blooms. 

129. Charming Forge, situated fifteen miles west of Bead¬ 
ing on the Tulpehocken, and within two miles of Womelsdorf, 
owned by Andrew Taylor & Sons, Furnace P.O. Berks county, 
managed by William Taylor, built in 1849, has 3 forge fires and 
2 hammers worked by water and in 1856 made 338 tons of 
blooms. 

130. Lebanon Forge, situated in Lebanon, owned by Seidel 
Killinger & Co. Lebanon P.O. Lebanon county, built in 1857 

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FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


169 


was intended for a rolling mill, but for the present only hammers 
scrap blooms. 

131. Union Forge, situated twelve miles north of Lebanon, 
on the Swatara river, within one hundred and fifty yards of the 
feeder of the Union Canal, owned by Jacob B. Weidman, Le¬ 
banon P.O. Lebanon county, built in 1845, has 5 forge fires and 
2 hammers, worked by water, and in 1856 made 249 tons of 
blooms and 10 .tons of bars. 

132. Monroe Forge, situated twelve miles north of Leba¬ 
non, on Monroe creek, two miles from Swatara river, owned 
by Seidel Killinger & Co. Lebanon P.O. Lebanon county, built 
in 1836, has 4 forge fires and 1 hammer worked by water and 
in 1856 made 549 tons of blooms. 

133. Newmarket Forge, situated twelve miles west of Le¬ 
banon, on Quitapikilla creek, two miles from Swatara river, 
owned by Jacob Light, leased and managed by Light and Early, 
Anville P.O. Lebanon county, built in 1795, has 4 forge fires 
and 2 hammers worked by water, and in 1855 made 354J tons 
of blooms. 

134. Speedwell Forge, situated eleven miles south of Lebanon, on Hammer 
creek and six miles from Litiz, owned by R. W. Coleman, Cornwall P.O. Lebanon 
county, built in 1150, has 3 forge fires and 1 hammer worked by water and in 1849 
made 300 tons of blooms. It is now abandoned and in ruins. 

135. Liberty Forge, situated seven miles southwest of 
Harrisburg on Yellow Breeches creek, three miles from Cum¬ 
berland Yalley railroad, owned by T. L. Boyer, Shiremanstown 
P.O. Cumberland county, built in 1790, has 4 forge fires and 2 
hammers driven by water and in 1856 made 529 tons of blooms 
and 4 tons of bars. 

136. Carlisle Forge, situated four and a half miles south¬ 
east of Carlisle on Boiling Springs and Yellow Breeches creek, 
owned by Peter F. Ege, Carlisle Cumberland county, managed 
by Jacob Goodyear, built in 1811, has 2 forge fires and 2 ham¬ 
mers worked by water and in 1855 made 271 tons of bars. 

137. Laurel Forge (and Furnace), situated on Laurel 
creek, fourteen miles southwest of Carlisle, owned by William 
31. Watts, Carlisle Cumberland county, managed by Adam 
Shufler, built in 1830, rebuilt in 1845, has 2 forge fires, 4 run- 

F 


170 


TABLE F.—FORGES IN EASTEKN PENNSYLVANIA. 


out fires and 2 hammers worked by water, made in 1856 415 
tons of blooms and 13 tons of bars. 

138. Big Pond Forge (and Furnace), situated sixteen 
miles west-southwest of Carlisle, and six miles southeast of Ship- 
pensburg, owned by Scliocli, Sons & Co. Shippensburg P.O. 
Cumberland county, managed by Isaac S. Matthews, built in 
1851, has 3 forge fires, 1 run-out fire and 1 heating fire and 1 
hammer worked by water, and in 1856 made 243 tons of 
blooms. 

139. Caledonia Forge, situated ten miles east of Chambers- 
burg, on the Conecocheague creek, fifteen miles west of Gettys¬ 
burg, owned by Thaddeus Stevens’ heirs, Graffenburg P.O. 
Franklin county, managed by Henry Sloat, built in 1830, has 4 
forge fires, 2 run-out fires and 3 hammers worked by water, and 
in 1855 made 370 tons of blooms and 150 tons of bars. 

140. Mont Alto Forge, Ho. 1, situated thirteen miles 
southeast of Chambersburg, four miles southeast of Mont Alto 
Furnace, and near the Adams county line, owned by Holker 
Hughes, Palo Alto P.O. Franklin county, built in 1809, has 4 
forge fires and 1 heating fire and 2 hammers worked by water 
and makes annually (in connection with Mont Alto, Ho. 2) about 
300 tons of blooms and 200 tons of bars. 

141. Mont Alto Forge, Ho. 2, situated thirteen miles 
southeast of Chambersburg, four miles southeast of Mont Alto 
Furnace, and near the Adams county line, owned by Holker 
Hughes, Palo Alto P.O. Franklin P.O. built in 1810 and rebuilt 
in 1842, has 5 forge fires, 1 run-out fire and 2 hammers worked 
by water, and makes annually (in connection with Mont Alto, 
Ho. 1) 300 tons of blooms and 200 tons of bars. 

142. Soundwell Forge, situated sixteen miles north of Chambersburg, on Cone- 
dogwinit creek, and eleven miles west of Shippensburg station on the Cumberland 
Valley railroad, owned by Sheffler & Fleming, Roxbury P.O. Franklin county, built 
in 1790, has 3 forge fires, 1 run out fire, and 2 hammers worked by water, made in 
1855 20 tons of blooms and 30 of bars and is probably the same as Roxburv 
Forge which is abandoned. 

142.5. An Old Forge three miles south of Shippensburg, was torn down in 
1849. 

143. Northeast Forge, situated eleven miles west of Chambersburg on Broad 
Run, owned by John Beaver and P. Stenger, Loudon P.O. Franklin county, built in 

F 


F0KGES IN EASTEKN PENNSYLVANIA. 


171 


1834, has 1 forge fire and 1 hammer worked by water, and in 1854 made 25 tons 
of bars. It is probably abandoned. 

144. Valley Forge, situated fifteen miles west of Chambers- 
burg on west Conecocbeague creek two miles north of Loudon, 
owned by John Beaver, Loudon P.O. Franklin county, leased 
to John Polsgrove, built in 1804, has one forge fire and 1 ham¬ 
mer worked by water, and in 1856 made perhaps 40 tons of 
bars. 

144.3. Loudon Forge and Furnace, in the edge of Loudon, were destroyed 
about 1840. 

144.5. Mount Pleasant Forge and Furnace, four miles northwest of Loudon, 
were destroyed in 1843. 

144.7. Hanover Forge and Furnace, in the Cove nine miles below McConnels- 
burg, Fulton county, have not been used for some years and are in ruins. 

145. Carrick Forge (Iron Works), situated nineteen miles 
northwest of Chambersburg, via Loudon and four miles south- 
southwest of Fannetsburg, owned by James R. Brewster Fan- 
netsburg P.O. Franklin county, leased to Samuel Walker, built 
in 1846, has 3 forge fires and 1 hammer worked by water and 
made in 1856 about 40 tons of blooms and 30 tons of bars. 

146. Warren Forge (and Furnace), situated seven miles 
northeast of Hancock Maryland, in the redshale cove of Licking 
creek, owned by William Bowers’ heirs Sylvan P.O. Franklin 
county, leased to Reuben Lewis & Co. built in 1832, has 1 forge 
fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and in 1856 made 45 tons 
of blooms. 

147. Ashland Bloomery, situated on Aquanchicola creek, 
seven miles east of Lehigh Gap station, owned by Eugene A. 
Trueauff Lehigh Gap P.O. Carbon county, built in 1820, has 3 
forge fires, 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1856 130 
tons of bars. 

148. Maria Forge, situated on Poco creek, three miles east 
of Weissport, owned by Samuel Balliet & Co. Weissport P.O. 
Carbon county, built in 1753, rebuilt in 1846, has 2 forge fires, 
2 puddling furnaces and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made 
in 1856 perhaps 78 tons of bar. 

149. Weissport Forge, situated in Weissport, on the Le¬ 
high Valley Railroad, owned by Mr. Weiss, Weissport P.O. 

F 


172 TABLE E.—FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 

Carbon county, built in 1853, bas 2 forge fires, 1 hammer driven 
by steam, was built to manufacture railroad axles. 

150. PennsviUe Forge, situated on Lizard creek four miles 
southwest of Lehighton station, owned by Charles H. Himson, 
East Penn P.O. Carbon county, built in 1829, rebuilt in 1856, 
uses one of its 4 forge fires, has 2 hammers driven by water, 
and made in 1855 18 tons of blooms and 27 of bars. 

151. Tamaqua Iron Works, situated at Tamaqua, on the 
Little Schuylkill railroad, owned by Carters & Allen, Tamaqua 
P.O. Schuylkill county, built in 1846, has been in operation 11 
years, and consists of foundry, machinery, car, boiler and smith 
shops, covers an area of 500 x 250 feet, has 1 heating furnace, 
11 forge fires, and one 3 to 4 ton ISTasmyth steam hammer, 
driven by two engines, and two large cupolas, makes at present 
200 car-wheels per month, and can build fifteen four-wheel cars 
a month. 

« 

152. Hecla Forge, situated near the Little Schuylkill Railroad, thirty-one miles 
above Reading, owned by Matthew V. Richards, Reading and Ringold P.O. Schuyl¬ 
kill county and managed by Jacob G. Coleman, built in 1828, has 3 forge fires and 
2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1854 350 tons of blooms. It was aban¬ 
doned when the drift coal dust filled up its dam. 

153. Schuylkill Forge, owned by John Schall, of the firm of Schall & Taylor 
Port Clinton, Schuylkill county, built in 1801, has 5 forge fires, 2 hammers driven 
by water, made in 1849 283 tons of blooms and bars and is now abandoned. 

153.5. Susanna Forge is abandoned. 

153.6. Mount Vernon Forge is abandoned. 

154. Brunswick Forge, owned by Koch, Hammer & Huntzinger, Port Clinton, 
Schuylkill county, built in 1816, has 2 forge fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, 
and is now abandoned. 

155. Mt. Hebron Forge, situated on the Mohontongo creek 
in the red shale valley, between the Broad and Locust moun¬ 
tains, three miles southwest of Ashland, owned by Dr. Otto, 
Easton and managed by J. B. Otto, Barry P.O. Schuylkill 
county, built in 1826, has 3 forge fires and 2 hammers, driven 
by water, and made in 1855, perhaps 200 tons of bars chiefly. 

156. Oakdale Forge, situated on Wiconisco creek, thirty 
miles north of Harrisburg, owned by David K. McClure, Oak¬ 
dale P.O. Dauphin county, built in 1830, has 5 forge fires, 2 
hammers driven by water and made in 1856 237 tons of blooms 
and bars. 

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FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


173 


157. Stony dale Forge, situated on Stony Brook, on the 
south side of the Third or Coal Mountain, on the Dauphin and 
Susquehanna railroad, thirteen miles north of Harrisburg, 
owned by Snyder & Kinzer, Harrisburg P.O. managed by 
E. E. Kinzer, Dauphin county, built in 1850, has 3 forge fires, 
1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 430 tons of 
blooms. 

158. Nescopic Forge, situated on Nescopic creek two miles 
south of Berwick, owned by Headley A. Westler & Company, 
and managed by N. G. Westler, Berwick P.O. Luzerne county, 
built in 1824, has 4 forge fires and 2 hammers driven by water, 
and made in 1855 245 tons of blooms and bars. 

159. Catawissa Forge, situated on Catawissa creek, six 
miles east of Catawissa, in front of the Gap in the Nescopic 
mountain, owned by G. & B. Shuman, leased by J. L. & W. T. 
Shuman, Maineville P.O. Columbia county, built in 1824, has 
4 forge fires, 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1855 60 
tons of blooms and 87 of bars. 

160. Paxinas Forge, situated on Shamoken river, three 
miles below Shamoken, owned by Jacob Leisenring, Bear Gap, 

* and William Duard Sunbury, Northumberland county, An¬ 
drew Tar lessee, built in 1844, rebuilt in 1851, has 1 forge 
fire, 1 hammer driven by water and made in 1854 350 tons of 
blooms. 

161. Berlin Forge, situated in Clinton, north of Jack’s 
Mountain, 2 miles from Hartleton, owned by John Church & 
Co. Hartleton, Union county, built in 1827 has 4 forge fires and 
1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1854 300 tons and 
nothing since. 

161.5. Rebecca Forge and Furnace, on Standing Stone creek, 12 miles above 
Huntingdon, are in ruins. 

162. Freedom Forge, situated west of the Juniata river, 
'seven miles southwest of Lewistown, owned by John A. Wright 

& Co. Lewistown, Mifflin county, built in 1810, has 8 forge fires 
and 5 hammers driven by water, and made in 1856 930 tons of 
blooms and 380 of bars. 

163. Brookland Forge, situated on the canal, at the edge 
of the village of Waynesburg, abcut 12 miles southwest of Lew- 

F 


174 


TABLE F.—FORGES IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


istown, owned by the Brookland Iron Company managed by 
G. AY. McBride AYaynesburg, Mifflin county, built in 1839, has 3 
forge fires, 3 puddling fires, and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
is said to have made in 1856 10 tons of wire billet per day for 
7 months. 

163.5. Orbisonia Forge, Huntingdon county, is in ruins. 

164. Malinda Forge, situated four miles south-southwest of 
Orbisonia, and one hundred yards above Malinda Furnace, owned 
by J. & L. Sheffer, and managed by T. E. Orbison, Orbisonia, 
Huntingdon county Pennsylvania, built in 1842, had 3 forge 
fires, but now has one refinery and one bloomery fire and 2 
hammers driven by water, and made in 1856 about 450 tons of 
blooms. 

165. Lemnos Forge and Furnace, situated on Yellow 
creek, five miles west of Hopewell, owned by Madara & King 
and managed by AVilliam Madara, Allequippa P.O. Bedford 
county Pennsylvania, built in 1807, has 3'forge fires and 1 ham¬ 
mer driven by water, and made in 1855 450 tons of blooms. 

166. Bedford Forge, situated on Yellow creek five miles 
west of Hopewell, owned by John King & Company, managed 
by Thomas King, Allequippa P.O. Bedford county, built in 
1813, has 3 forge fires and 2 hammers driven by water, and 
makes about 150 tons of bars annually. 

167. Hepburn Forge, situated on Lycoming creek just in¬ 
side the mouth of the gorge of the Alleghany Mountain, twelve 
miles north of Williamsport, owned by J. AY. Heilman, Cres¬ 
cent P.O. Lycoming county, built in 1830, has 2 forge fires and 
2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1855 40 tons of blooms 
and 30 tons of bars. 

168. Heshbon Forge (Furnace and Rolling Mill), situ¬ 
ated on Lycoming creek, opposite McKinney’s bridge station, 
on the Williamsport and Elmira railroad, five miles north of 
Williamsport, owned by AYilliam McKinney AVilliamsport, built 
in 1828, has 2 forge fires, 2 run-out fires and 1 hammer driven 
water, and made in 1855 perhaps 300 tons of rolling mill 
bars. 

169. Washington Forge, situated 13 miles northeast of 
Bellefonte, owned by James Irwin of Bellefonte, Hittany P.O. 

F 


FORGES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


175 


Clinton county, built in 1837, lias 4 forge fires, 1 run-out fire, 
and 3 hammers driven by water, and has made annually per¬ 
haps 350 tons of blooms. 

170. Howard Forge (and Rolling Mill), situated on 
Lick Run, twelve miles northeast of Bellefonte, owned by Irvin, 
Thomas & Company, managed by John Irvin Jr. Howard P.O. 
Centre county, built in 1840, has 4 forge fires, and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1856 291 tons of blooms. 

171. Eagle Forge, situated on Bald Eagle creek, and Bald 
Eagle and Spring creek canal, five miles northeast of Bellefonte, 
owned by C. & J. Curtin, Eagle Furnace P.O. Centre county, 
built in 1811, has 7 forge fires, 1 run-out fire, and 2 hammers 
driven by water, and made in 1856 660 tons of blooms. 

172. Milesburg Forge, situated on Spring creek, Belle¬ 
fonte; Phillipsburg Turnpike, two miles north of Bellefonte, 
owned by Irvin, McCoy & Co. managed by James H. Linn, 
Milesburg, Centre county, built in 1800, has 4 forge fires, 2 pud¬ 
dling fires, and 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1856 
615 tons of blooms. 

173. Bellefonte Forge, situated on the Logan branch of 
Spring creek, thirty miles from Lockhaven via canal owned by 
Valentines, Thomas & Co. managed by R. B. Valentines Jr. 
Bellefonte Centre county, built in 1795, has 6 forge fires, and 

1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 710 tons of 
blooms. 

174. Rock Forge, close by Rock Furnace, six miles southeast 
of Bellefonte, owned by William F. Reynolds, Bellefonte, Cen¬ 
tre county, built in 1832, has 1 bloomary fire, 3 forge fires and 

2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1855, about 250 tons 
of blooms and bars and nothing since. 

' 175. Coleraine Forges, FTos. 1, 2, 3, situated three miles 
northeast of Spruce creek, owned by Lyon, Shorb & Co. man¬ 
aged by S. C. Stewart, Spruce creek Huntingdon county, built 
in 1805, have 7 forge fires and 3 hammers driven by water, and 
made in 1856 784 tons of blooms. 

176. Elizabeth Forge, situated on Spruce creek, one mile 
below Coleraine Forges, Huntingdon county, owned by J. & G. 
11. Shonberger, Pittsburg (Alleghany county), built in 1826, 

F 


176 


TABLE F.—FORGES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


lias 3 forge fires, 1 run-out fire and 1 liammer, driven by water, 
and made in 1849 490 tons of blooms, and nothing since 1853. 

177. Barre Forges, UST'os. 1 and 2, situated on the Little 
-Juniata three miles above Petersburg, and opposite Barre Sta¬ 
tion, Pennsylvania railroad, owned by Joseph Green & Co. man¬ 
aged by Col. G. Dorsey 6reen, Barre P.O. Huntingdon county, 
built in 1800, has 5 forge fires, 2 run-out fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1855 677 tons of blooms. 

178. Juniata Forge, Ho. 1, situated near Petersburg on 
the Pennsylvania railroad and Little Juniata river, owned by 
A. P. Wilson, leased by B. Lorenz and S. F. Cooper, Petersburg 
P.O. Huntingdon county, built in 1837, has 5 forge fires, 1 run¬ 
out fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1855 675 
tons of blooms. 

179. Juniata u Iron Works” Forge, Ho. 2, situated on the 
Juniata river, four miles above Petersburg and one mile east of 
Alexandria, owned by S. Hatfield, Jun., Alexandria, Hunting¬ 
don county, built in 1837, has 6 forge fires, 1 run-out fire and 1 
hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 428 tons of 
blooms. 

180. Stockdale Forge, situated on Spruce creek and Little 
Juniata river, near Spruce creek station Pennsylvania railroad, 
owned by John S. Isett, leased and managed by James Garden, 
Spruce creek P.O. Huntingdon county, built in 1836, has 2 
forge fires, 1 run-out fire, and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1856 258 tons of blooms. 

181. Cold Spring Forge, situated on the Little Juniata 
river, a half mile west of Tyrone, Pennsylvania railroad, owned 
by Edwafd B. Isett, Tyrone P.O. Blair county, built in 1833, 
has 2 forge fires, 1 run-out fire, and 1 hammer driven by water, 
and made in 1856 285 tons of blooms. 

182. Tyrone Forges, situated on the Pennsylvania railroad, 
two miles east of Cold Spring station, Blair county, owned by 
Lyon, Sliorb & Company of Pittsburg, Alleghany county, built 
in 1804, has 11 forge fires and 3 hammers driven by water, and 
made in 1856 1,254 tons of blooms. 

183. Antes Forge, situated a third of a mile south of Tipton, Pennsylvania 
railroad, owned by Graham McCamant’s heirs, leased by Martin Bell, Elizabeth Fur- 

F 


FORGES IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


ITT 


nace P.O. Blair county, built in 1813, has 4 forge fires, 1 run-out fire and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made about 400 tons a year of blooms and slabs, but has been 
abandoned since 1853. 

184. Mary Ann Forges, Nos. 1 and 2, situated a mile 
south-southeast of Bell’s Mills, owned by John Bell, Antestown 
P.O. Blair county, built in 1829, have five forge fires, 1 run-out 
fire, and 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1856 about 
400 tons of blooms and 12 of bars. 

185. Etna Forge, situated on the Pennsylvania canal five 
miles southwest of Alexandria, owned by Isett, Keller & Co., 
Etna Furnace P.O. Blair county, has 4 forge fires, 2 run-out 
fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 
450 tons of blooms. 

186. Cove Forge, situated on the Juniata river, seventeen 
miles east of Holidaysburg via Pennsylvania canal, and eight 
miles southwest of Alexandria, owned by John Boyer & Co. 
managed by A. Butledge, Williamsburg P.O. Blair county, has 
2 forge fires, 1 run-out fire, and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1856 339 tons of blooms. 

187. Franklin Forge, situated on the canal and Juniata 
river, two miles west of Williamsburg, owned by Daniel II. 
Boyer, leased by Sewell, Stewart & Co., Williamsburg P.O. 
Blair county, built in 1829, rebuilt about 1851, has 4 forge fires, 
1 run-out fire, 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1854 
600 tons of blooms, and nothing since. 

188. Maria (Lower) Forge, situated just above McKee’s 
Gap in Bald Eagle Mountain, seven miles south-southwest of 
Holidaysburg, owned by Shonberger’s heirs, leased by D. C. 
McCormick and managed by William Forbes, Holidaysburg, 
Blair county, built about 1829, has 5 forge fires, 1 run-out fire 
and 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1856 494 tons of 
blooms. 

189. Maria, Middle Forge, a quarter of a mile above 
the last, and three or four hundred yards below the next, 
owned by J. H. Duncan, Spang’s Mills P.O. managed by John 
King, Blair county, built about 1826, has 6 forge fires,. 1 run-out 
fire and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 838 tons 
of blooms. 


12 


F 


178 


TABLE I.-FORGES IN VIRGINIA. 


190. Maria, Upper Forge, nearly eight miles south- 
southwest of Holidaysburg, owned by J. H. Duncan, Spang 
Mills P.O. Blair county, and managed by John King, built 
about 1820, has 3 forge fires and 1 hammer driven by water, 
and made in 1855 25-1 tons of blooms. 

191. Martha Forge, situated nearly seven miles south- 
southwest of Holidaysburg, three hundred yards above Martha 
(Gap) Furnace, on Cove creek, has 5 forge fires, 1 run-out fire, 
1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 700 tons 
of blooms. 

192. Alleghany Forge, situated on the Juniata river, nearly 
six miles northwest of Holidaysburg, owned by Mrs. E. Lytle, 
and managed by James Hemphill, Holidaysburg Blair county, 
built about 1831, has 5 forge fires, 1 run-out fire and 1 hammer 
driven by water and made in 1S55 901 tons of blooms. 

193. Portage Forge and Rolling Mill, situated two miles west of Holidays- 
hurg, owned by Burroughs, Higgins, Royer & Schmucker, managed by Joseph 
Higgins, Duncanville Blair county, has 3 forge fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, but has been disused for several years. 

194. Navy Yard Forge, situated one mile southeast of the 
capitol, on the east bank of the Potomac, in the District of 
Columbia, owned by the United States Government, James 
Tucker superintendent of the Blacksmith’s Department, built 
about the year 1812 and rebuilt about 1832, has 10 heating fires 
and 4 hammers -worked by steam, and in 1857 made 483-|- tons 
of anchors, shafts, chains, etc. 

195. Armory Forge, situated at the forks of the Potomac 
and Shenandoah rivers, owned by the United States Govern¬ 
ment, superintended by Henry W. Clowe, Harper’s Ferry, Jef¬ 
ferson county Virginia, built in 1854, has 4 fires in all and 1 
hammer worked by water, and in 1856 made 50 tons of arms. 

196. South Bend Forge, situated ten miles east of Charles¬ 
town on the Shenandoah river Virginia, owned by Charles 
Brooke, Wagentown, Chester county Pennsylvania, built in 1835, 
rebuilt in 1838, has 4 fires in all, and 1 hammer worked by 
water, and made blooms. Hot in operation since 1856. 

197. Bloomary Forge, situated twenty-five miles northwest 

X 


FORGES IN VIRGINIA. 


179 


of Winchester, on Cacapon river, two miles below Bloomary 
Furnace, owned by C. W. Pancoast & James Magee, 403 Walnut 
street Philadelphia, and Paw-paw tunnel P.O. Hampshire 
county Virginia, built in 1852, rebuilt in 1855, has 5 tires in all 
and 2 hammers worked by water and in 1856 made perhaps 200 
tons of bars. 

198. Rock Forge, situated on Decker’s Creek three miles east of Morgantown, 
owned and managed by Edgar C. Wilson, Morgantown P.O. Monongalia county, 
has 3 fires in all and 1 hammer worked by water, and made bars, but has been out 
of blast for about 4 years. 

199. Capon Forge, situated twenty-five miles southwest of 
Winchester on the Cacapon river, owned and managed by J. J. 
Kelly, wardensville P.O. Hardy county, has 4 fires in all and 2 
hammers driven by water and in 1855 made perhaps 220 tons 
of blooms and bars. 

200. Harmony Forge, situated on Passage creek, eight 
miles southwest of Front Poyal and six miles southeast of Stras- 
burg, owned and managed by Peter P. Bell, Water Lick P.O. 
Warren county, built in 1855, has 2 fires in all and 1 hammer 
worked by water and in 1855 made 12 tons of blooms. 

201. Union Forge, A, situated on Stony Creek, six miles 
southwest of Woodstock, owned by Lantz & Pinker, managed 
by Samuel B. Lantz, Lantz’s Mills P.O. Shenandoah county, 
built in 1850, has 5 fires in all, and 2 hammers worked by 
water, and in 1857 made about 234 tons of blooms and bars. 

202. Valley Forge, A, situated eight miles southwest of 
Woodstock on Stony creek, one mile below Columbia Furnace, * 
owned by Wissler & Myers, Columbia Furnace P.O. Shenan¬ 
doah county, built in 1832, has five fires in all and 2 hammers 
worked by water and in 1856 made about 225 tons of blooms 
and bars. 

203. Liberty Forge, situated twelve miles southwest of 
Woodstock, on Stony creek, owned by Walter Newman and 
managed by Benjamin P. Newman, Liberty Furnace Shenan¬ 
doah county, built in 1828, has 4 fires in all and 2 hammers 
worked by water and makes annually about 20 tons of bars. 

204. Fine Forge, situated three and a half miles north of 
Newmarket and sixteen miles southwest of Woodstock, owned 
and managed by Philip F. Frederick, Newmarket P.O. Shenan- 

I 


180 


TABLE I.-*—FORGES IN VIRGINIA. 


doali county, built in 1725 and rebuilt in 1835, lias 3 fires in all 
and 2 hammers worked by water, and makes annually perhaps 
50 tons of bars. 

205. Speedwell Forge, No. 1, situated on Hawksbill creek 
one and a half miles north of Luray, owned by Henry Forrer 
Shenandoah P.O. Page county, and managed by J. Geary, built 
in 1815, has 3 refining and 1 run-out fires and 1 hammer worked 
by water and in 1856 made 119 tons of anconies. 

206. Speedwell Forge, No. 2, situated two miles north of 
Luray, half a mile below No. 1, owned by Henry Forrer and 
managed by John Geary, Luray P.O. Page county, built about 
1820, has 1 chafery fire and 1 hammer worked by water and in 
1856 made 162 tons of bars. 

207. Catharine Forge, No. 1, situated three miles west of 
Newport, fifty rods below Catharine Furnace, owned and man¬ 
aged by John McKiernan Alma P.O. Page county, has 1 refi¬ 
nery, 1 chafery and 1 run-out and 1 hammer worked by water 
and in 1856 made perhaps 76 tons of blooms and bars. 

208. Catharine Forge, No. 2, situated three miles west of 
Newport, fifty rods west of Catharine Forge No. 1, owned and 
managed by John McKiernan, Alma P.O. Page county, built in 
18—, has 1 refinery and 1 chafery fire and 1 hammer and its pro¬ 
duction is included in the last. 

209. Shenandoah Forge, situated nine miles south of New 
port, on main branch of Shenandoah, owned lately by D. & 
H. Forrer, who are at present its lessees, Shenandoah Iron 
Works P.O. Page county, has 5 refinery and 1 run-out fires and 
2 hammers worked by water and in 1856 made about ,300 tons 
of blooms. 

210. Mount Vernon Forge, situated on the Shenandoah 
three miles south of Port Pepublic and one mile north of Weir’s 
cave, John Miller owner, Wm. G. Miller Port Pepublic P.O. 
Pockingham, built in 1810 and rebuilt in 1855, has 4 refinery,' 
1 chafery, 1 run-out fire and 2 hammers worked by water and 
makes annually perhaps 150 tons of bars and slabs. 

• 211. Mossy Creek Forge, situated on Mossy creek and 
£>n Warm Springs and Harrison turnpike, fifteen miles north of 

I 


FORGES IN VIRGINIA. 


181 


Staunton, owned and managed by Daniel Forrer, Mossy Creek 
P.O. Augusta county, built in 1757, rebuilt in 1767 and in 1836, 
lias a refinery and a cbafery fire and 2 hammers worked by 
water, and in 1856 made perhaps 75 tons of bars. 

212. Union Forge, B, situated on South river, thirteen miles 
southeast of Staunton, and one and a half miles south of Waynes- 
borough, owned and managed by James E. Irvine, Waynes- 
borough P.O. Augusta county, built about 1800 and rebuilt in 
1850, has 2 refinery, a chafery and a run-out fire and 2 hammers 
worked by water, and has made annually perhaps 110 tons of 
bars. 

213. Gibraltar Forge, situated on the North river, nine 
miles north of Lexington, owned by W. W. Davis, managed by 
J. Cole Davis, Bockbridge Baths P.O. Bockbridge county, built 
about 1800, rebuilt about 1845, has 3 refinery and a chafery fire, 
1 hammer driven by water, and in 1856 made 154 tons of 
blooms. 

214. Lebanon Valley Forge, situated ten miles north of 
Lexington, on North river, one and a half miles northwest of 
Cedar Grove, owned by M. Bryan, leased to W. W. Davis, 
Bockbridge county, built about 1825, has 4 fires in all and 2 
hammers worked by water, and in 1856 made perhaps 200 tons 
of bars. 

215. Buffalo Forge, situated on Buffalo creek, half a mile 
northwest of North Biver canal, and nine miles south-southeast 
of Lexington, owned and managed by William Weaver, Saun- 
der’s Store P.O. Bockbridge county, built about 1800 and re¬ 
built about 1840, has 4 fires in all and 2 hammers worked by 
water, and has annually made about 100 tons of bars. 

216. James River Forge, situated eleven miles west of Buchanan in Bote¬ 
tourt county, built by William Ross about 1825 and rebuilt about 1845, was aban¬ 
doned twelve or fifteen years ago and no trace of it is left. 

217. Brunswick Forge, situated four and a half miles above Fincastle on 
Catawba creek, in Botetourt county, was abandoned about eight years ago, and is 
all in ruins. 

218. Globe Forge, situated on Simpson’s creek, seventeen 
and a half miles east of Covington, owned and managed by Ed¬ 
win & Ira F. Jordan, Cow Pasture P.O. Alleghany county, 
built about 1832, has 3 fires in all and 1 hammer worked by 
water, and has annually made about 45 tons of bars. 

I 


182 


TABLE I.—FORGES IN VIRGINIA. 


219. Clifton Forge, situated thirteen miles east of Coving¬ 
ton on Jackson’s river and four miles east of Jackson’s River 
station, owned and managed by W. L. Alexander, Clifton Forge 
P.0 Alleghany county, built in 1824 and rebuilt in 1827, lias 
3 refinery, a chafery and a run-out fire and 2 hammers worked 
by water, and has made about 130 tons of bars annually. 

220. Exchange Forge, situated on Dunlap’s creek two 
miles west of Covington, and five and a half miles west of Dolly 
Ann Furnace, owned byW. T. Jordan & Co. of Covington, 
and leased to B. J. Jordan & Co. Alleghany county, built in 
1848, has 5 fires in all and 1 hammer worked by water, and in 
1856 has made annually about 50 tons of bars. 

221. An old Forge, situated one mile above Newcastle on Craig’s creek, Craig 
county built about 1830, and managed by Jordan, was abandoned ten or fifteen 
years ago. 

222. An old Forge on Walker’s creek, in Giles county, owned by Anslem 
Brawley, was abandoned before April 1854. 

223. Bill’s Bloomary or (Snowhill) Forge, situated 
twelve miles southwest of Christiansburg, on west bank of 
Little river, ten miles east of Hewbern, owned and managed 
by David B. Bill, Snowville P.O. Pulaski county, built about 
1845, has 3 bloomary fires and 1 hammer worked by water and 
has made about 62 tons of bars per annum from browm hematite 
ore. 

224. Valley Forge, B, situated on Big river five and a half 
miles west of Franklin C.H. and twenty-five miles east of Floyd 
C.H. owned and managed by Peter Saunders, Franklin Court 
House Franklin county, built about 1850, has 2 refinery fires, 1 
run-out and 1 hammer worked by water, and has annually made 
perhaps 150 tons of bars. 

225. Blue Falls Forge, situated on Smith’s river twenty 
miles south of Franklin C. H. and five miles north of Union 
Furnace, owned by Samuel W. Hairston managed by Allen 
Farner Union Furnace P.O. Franklin county, built about 1852, 
has 2 refinery fires and 1 chafery, with 2 hammers worked by 
water and in 1855 made perhaps 100 tons of bars. 

226. Union Forge C, situated five miles south of Blue Falls Forge, near Union 
Furnace, in Patrick county, was washed away in 1850 and never rebuilt. 

227. Mayo Forge, situated on Mayo river thirty-five miles 

I 


FORGES IN VIRGINIA. 


183 


southwest of Franklin Court House, and eleven miles south of 
Union Furnace, and fourteen miles east of Patrick Court House, 
owned by George W. and J. G. Penn, Penn’s Store P.O. Patrick 
county, built in 1856, has 2 refinery fires and 1 chafery with 2 
hammers worked by water and in 1856 made perhaps 25 tons 
of bars. 

228. Wilkinson Forge, No. 2, situated three miles below Grayson’s Springs, 
Carroll county, built by William Wilkinson about 1840, was abandoned more than 
six years ago. 

229. Wilkinson’s Eloomary Forge, Ho. 1, situated on 
Crooked creek four miles south of its junction with Hew river, 
and ten miles west of Hillsville, owned by Elisha Burnett & 
Sons, Hillsville P.O. Carroll county, built about 1832, has 1 
bloomary fire and 1 hammer, worked by water, and makes an¬ 
nually perhaps 8 tons of bars from limestone ore. 

230. Old Pierce Forge, situated fifteen miles north of Hillsville, on Little Reed 
Island creek, owned by David Pierce, Carroll county, was abandoned forty-five 
years ago and is now gone. 

231. Chestnut Forge, situated on Chestnut creek, twelve miles west of Hills¬ 
ville, Carroll county, owned by the heirs of John Blair, was abandoned five years 
ago and is in ruins. 

232. An old Forge, situated two miles below Chestnut Forge in Carroll county, 
built about 1790, was abandoned fifty years ago and is now gone. 

233. Graham’s Forge, situated twelve miles east of Wytlie- 
ville on Peed creek, under same roof with Graham’s Polling 
Mill, six miles southeast of Mack’s Meadows, owned by David 
Graham and managed by Mitchell B. Tate, Graham’s Forge P.O. 
Wythe county, built in 1800 and rebuilt in 1856, has 4 refinery 
fires and 1 hammer worked by water, and in 1856 made 161 
tons of blooms and 23 tons of bars. 

234. Pierce’s Eloomary Forge, situated on Cripple creek 
thirteen miles southeast of Wytheville, and eleven miles west 
of Graham’s Forge, owned by Alexander Pierce, leased to 
Bobert Williams and H. E. Catron, Brownhill Wythe county, 
built in 1822 probably and rebuilt in 1853, has 2 fires and 1 
hammer worked by water, and in 1856 made about 40 tons of 
bars out of Graham’s ore. 

235. Chatwell Bloomary Forge, situated on Cripple creek 
twelve miles about south of Wytheville, one mile above Pierce’s 
Forge, owned by J. P. M. Zimmerman, leased to Robert San- 

I 


184 


TABLE I.—FORGES IN VIRGINIA. 


dus, Brownliill P.O. Wythe county, built about 1843, has 2 
fires and 1 hammer worked by water and in 1856 made about 
10 tons of bars out of Graham’s ore. 

236. Wilkinson’s Bloomary Forge, No. 3, situated twelve 
miles south-soutliwest of Wytheville, owned by James Wilkin¬ 
son, leased to Robert Sandus, Brownliill P.O. Wythe county, 
built about 1800, and rebuilt in 1846 and in 1850, has 2 fires 
and 1 hammer worked by water and makes annually about 9 
tons of bars out of Graham’s ore. 

237. High Rock Forge, situated on Little Reed Island creek about twenty 
miles east of Wytkeville, Wythe county, was abandoned six or seven years ago. 

238. Davis’ Forge, situated fifteen miles north of Marion, and seven or eight 
miles northeast of Chatham Hill Forge, one of the oldest in the region, was aban¬ 
doned about ten years ago. 

239. A Forge, fifteen miles north of Marion, near Davis’ Forge, in Wythe county, 
begun in 1852, was never finished. 

240. Barton’s Bloomary Forge, situated on south fork of 
Holsten in Rye Yalley, six miles south of Marion owned and 
managed by John H. Barton, Rye Yalley P.O. Smyth county, 
built probably in 1807 and rebuilt in 1857, has 1 fire and 1 
hammer worked by water and made in 1856 about 1-J tons of 
bars. 

241. Nicholses’ Bloomary Forge, situated on the south 
fork of the Holsten, one mile southwest of Barton’s Furnace and 
eight and a half miles northeast of Seven-mile Ford, owned by 
William IL and Franklin Nichols, Rye Yalley P.O. Smyth 
county, built probably in 1807, has 2 fires and 1 hammer 
worked by water, and makes about 25 tons of bars annually. 

242. Chatham Hill Forge, No. 1, situated nineteen miles northeast of Saltville, 
on the north fork of Holsten, Smyth county, was abandoned in 1837 or earlier. 

243. Chatham Hill Bloomary Forge, No. 2, situated at 
Chatham Hill on the north fork of Holsten, eighteen miles 
northeast of Saltville and twelve miles north of Marion railroad 
station, owned and managed by Andrew Cox, Chatham Hill 
P.O. Smyth county, built in 1853, has 1 fire and 1 hammer 
worked by water and makes about 11 tons of bars annually. 

244. Piney Cliff Bloomary Forge, situated on the north 
fork of the Holsten nine miles southwest of Salt Works Branch 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 


185 


Junction on Virginia and Tennessee railroad, and tliree mile, 
north-northeast of Saltville, owned by Thomas L. Preston, man¬ 
aged by Harry Powers Saltville P.O. Smyth county, built in 
1847, has 1 fire and makes about 4 tons of bars annually. 

245. Fox Creek Forge, situated on Fox creek ten miles south of Barton’s 
Forge, and thirty-six miles west of Grayson Court House, owned and managed by 
James Nelson, Big Meadow P.O. Grayson county, built in 18—, has two fires and 1 
hammer worked by water, made in 1854 about 4J tons of bars and is now in 
ruins. 

246. Brown’s Bloomary Forge, situated on the south fork 
of the Holsten river seven miles south of Abingdon and thirty- 
five miles below Nicholses’ Forge, owned and managed by 
James Brown, Abingdon P.O. Washington county, built about 
1825 and rebuilt about 1841, has 2 fires and 1 hammer worked 
by water and makes about 2-J tons of bars annually. 

247. White’s Forge, No. 1 , situated at White’s Furnace on the north fork of 
Holsten, fifteen miles southwest of Saltville, Washington county, was abandoned 
twenty years ago and is now entirely gone. 

248. White’s Forge, No. 2, six miles west of White’s Forge No. 1 , on Brumley 
creek, Washington county, was abandoned twenty years ago and is now entirely 
gone. 

249. Howard’s Bloomary Forge, situated in New Garden 
on Lewis’s creek, twelve miles north-northeast of Lebanon, and 
thirty miles northwest of Abingdon, owned by Johnson & John 
T. Howard, New Garden P.O. Bussell county, built in 1853, 
has 1 fire and 1 hammer worked by water and makes 1 or 2 
tons of bars per annum. 

250. Johnson’s Forge, situated on Copper creek, about fourteen miles west of 
Lebanon and two and a half miles southwest of Dickinsonville, Russell county, was 
abandoned from thirty to forty years ago. 

251. Moccasin Bloomary Forge, situated on Moccasin 
creek five miles above Moccasin Gap in Clinch mountain, and 
five miles northeast of Estillville, owned and managed by Wil¬ 
liam B. White Estillville P.O. Scott county, built in 1851, has 
2 fires and 1 hammer worked by water and makes about 25 
tons of bars annually. 

252. Milam Bloomary Forge, situated on Martin’s creek, 
sixteen miles west of Jonesville, owned by Bales, Edds & Co. 
and managed by Hunter Edds, Pose Hill P.O. Lee county, 
built in or. about the year 1825 and rebuilt about 1847, has now 

1 


186 


TABLE I.—BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 


1 fire and 1 liammer worked by water and makes about 10 tons 
of bars annually. 

253. Bowling Green Bloomary Forge, situated on Mar¬ 
tin’s creek fifteen miles west of Jonesville four miles southeast 
of Rose Hill P.O. owned by C. & R. M. Bales & Co. and man¬ 
aged by Robert M. Bales, Rose Hill P.O. Lee county Virginia, 
built in 1828 and rebuilt in 1857, has now 1 fire and 1 hammer 
worked by water and makes about 9 tons of bars annually. 

254. Union Bloomary Forge, situated six miles northeast 
of Danbury on Snow creek, owned and managed by Alexander 
Martin, Martin’s Lime Kilns P.O. Stokes county Hortli Caro¬ 
lina, built in 1780 and rebuilt in 1854, has 1 fire and 1 hammer 
worked by water and annually makes about 7 tons of bars. 

255. Tunnel Bloomary Forge, situated on Dan river 
twelve miles of Germantown, opposite Danbury, owned by the 
Stokes Iron Mining Company (R. D. Golding), managed by H. 
W. Adkins, Germantown P.O. Stokes county, built in 1843, has 

2 fires and 1 hammer worked by water, and made annually 
about 40 tons of bars. 

256. Frost’s Bloomary Forge, situated one mile from Keyser’s forge, owned 
by Dr. Pepper of Danbury, has been out of blast for six years. 

257. Keyser’s Bloomary Forge, situated on the Town Fork near its head six 
miles northwest of Germantown and ten miles southwest of Danbury, owned and 
managed by Philip Keyser, Germantown P.O. Stokes county, built in 1796, rebuilt 

• in 1855, had 2 fires and 1 hammer worked by water and was abandoned several 

years ago. 

258. Hill’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Tom’s creek, nine 
teen miles west of Danbury, owned and managed by William 
Hill, Tom’s creek P.O. built in 1791 and rebuilt in 1853, has 

1 fire and 1 hammer worked by water and annually makes about 
20 tons of bars. 

259. Fulk’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Tom’s creek two miles southwest of 
Tom’s Creek P.O. owned by Pleasant Evans Surry county, has been out of use for 
three or four years and in disrepair. 

260. Hiatt’s Upper Bloomary Forge, situated on Ararat 
river thirteen miles north of Rockford, owned and managed by ' 
Gabriel Hiatt, Flat Shoal P.O. Surry county, built in 1851, has 

2 fires and 1 hammer worked by water and in 1S56 made about 
47 tons of bars. 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 18? 

261. Hiatt’s Lower Bloomary Forge, situated four miles 
below Hiatt’s Upper Forge, owned and managed by Martin 
Hiatt Tom’s Creek P.O. Surry county, built in 1845 and rebuilt 
in 1856, uses 1 of its 2 fires and 1 hammer worked by water and 
in 1856 made about 21 tons of bars. 

262. Blackwood’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Fisher’s 
river five miles northwest of Rockford, owned and managed by 
FT. H. Blackwood, Rockford P.O. Surry county, built in 1836, 
rebuilt in 1852, has 2 fires and 1 hammer worked by water, and 
in 1856 made about 15 tons of bars. 

263. Cooper’s Bloomary Forge (late Rutledge’s), situated 
on Cody’s creek near Fisher’s river one mile above the Black¬ 
wood Forge, owned and managed by B. M. Cooper, Dobson P.O. 
Surry county, built in 1854, has 2 fires and 1 hammer worked by 
water and in 1856 made 27 tons of bars. 

264. Hobson’s Bloomary Forge, Ho. 1, situated on For- 
bush creek nine miles southeast of Rockford and five miles east 
of Yadkinville, owned and managed by Stephen Hobson, Re¬ 
public P.O. Yadkin county, built in 1843, has 2 fires and 1 ham¬ 
mer worked by water, and in 1856 made about 16 tons of bars. 

265. Hobson’s Bloomary Forge, Ho. 2, situated on Deep 
creek two and one quarter miles north from Yadkinville, eight 
miles south of Rockford, owned and managed by Stephen Hob¬ 
son, Republic P.O. Yadkin county, built in 1849, has two fires 
and 1 hammer worked by water and in 1854 made about 16 

tons of bars. 

266. Forbush Bloomary Forge, situated on Forbush creek, 
three miles east of Hobson’s Forge Ho. 1, owned and managed 
by Jesse Outen, Forbush P.O, Yadkin county, built in 1837 and 
rebuilt probably in 1849, has 1 fire and 1 hammer worked by 
water and annually makes about 10 tons of bars. 

267. Mount Carmel Bloomary Forge, situated on Moun¬ 
tain creek fourteen miles northeast of Lincolnton and twelve 
miles southeast of Hewton, owned and managed by Isaac E. 
Plain, Mountain creek P.O. Catawba county, built in 1817 and 
rebuilt in 1853, has one fire and 1 hammer worked by water 
and in 1856 made about 16 tons of bars. 


1 



188 TABLE I.-BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 


268. Rough-and-Ready Forge, situated on Mountain creek, 
twelve miles northeast of Lincolnton, owned and managed by J. 
M. Smith, Mountain creek P.O. Catawba county, has 2 fires and 
1 hammer worked by water and in 1856 made about 44 tons of 
bars. 

269. Jenny Lind Bloomary Forge on Maiden’s creek, 
six miles south from Newton, and eleven miles north-northeast 
of Lincolnton, owned by A. F. & E. J. Brevard, Cottagehome 
P.O. Catawba county, has 1 fire and 1 hammer driven by water 
and made about 37 tons of bars in 1856. 

270. Madison Bloomary Forge, on Leiper’s creek, eight 
miles east-southeast of Lincolnton, owned by J. F. & B. D. 
Johnston, Springhill P.O. Lincoln county, built in 1827 and re¬ 
built 1852, has one fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1856 about 15 tons of bars. 

271. Springhill Bloomary Forge, on Leiper’s creek, half 
a mile southeast of the last, owned by C. W. & C. J. Hammers- 
kold, Springhill P.O. Lincoln county, built about the beginning 
of the century and rebuilt in 1853, has 3 fires and 2 hammers, 
and makes about 100 tons a year of bars, out of iron-bank 
ore. 

272. Mount Tirza Bloomary Forge on Leiper’s creek 
four miles southeast of the last, owned and managed by P. A. 
Brevard, Cottagehome P.O. Lincoln county, has 2 fires and 2 
hammers, and made in 1856 about 60 tons of bars. 

273. Mount Welcome Bloomary Forge, on Leiper’s 
creek two miles southeast of the last, owned by Joseph &Wm. 
Johnston, Lincolnton P.O. Lincoln county, has 2 fires and 2 
hammers driven by water, and made in 1855 about 33 tons of 
bars. 

274. High Shoals Forge, Puddling Furnace and Rolling Mill, six miles 
north of Gaston, Gaston county North Carolina, owned by the High Shoals Mining 
and Manufacturing Company, has been disused since 1854 and is in ruins. 

275. Briggs’ Iron Works, a bloomary, on Crowder’s creek, 
six miles south from Dallas, owned and managed by Benjamin 
F. Briggs, Yorkville P.O. Gaston county, South Carolina, built 
in 1853, has 3 fires and 1 hammer driven by water and made in 
1857 about 336 tons of blooms. 

I 



BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 


189 


276. Dixon’s Bloomary Forge, on Knob creek, in Cleve¬ 
land county, twelve miles northwest of Shelby and eighteen miles 
west from Lincolnton on the road to Rutherfordton, owned and 
managed by Gilbert Dixon, has hot-blast, and made in 1856 
mould, bar, tyre and axle iron. 

277. Buffalo Shoals Bloomary Forge, on Buffalo creek, 
two miles above Froneberger’s Forge, nine miles east-northeast 
of Shelby, owned and managed by Joshua Beam, Shelby P.O. 
Cleveland county North Carolina, has 1 fire and 1 hammer 
driven by water and makes annually about 25 tons of wagon 
tyre, bar and plough moulds for home market, from Ormond’s 
magnetic ore ; but the poverty and distance of the ore will cause 
the forge to be soon abandoned. 

278. Froneberger’s Bloomary Forge, on Buffalo creek, 
four miles northeast from Shelby and five miles north of Muddy 
creek junction, owned by D. Froneberger & Company, and man¬ 
aged by S. B. Oats, Shelby P.O. Cleveland county North Caro¬ 
lina, was built in 1855, has 3 fires and 2 hammers driven by 
water and made in 1857 120 tons of bars. 

279. Buffalo Bloomary Forge, on Buffalo creek, eight 
miles east of Shelby, ten miles north-northeast of Buffalo Iron 
Works, and four miles south of Froneberger’s Forge, owned and 
managed by William Roberts, Shelly P.O. Cleveland county 
North Carolina, built in 1815, rebuilt in 1856, has 2 fires and 1 
hammer, and made in 1856 about 35 tons of bars and plough 
moulds for a South Carolina market, out of Brigg’s Yellow 
Ridge Bank grey magnetic ore from under the west side of 
King’s Mountain. There was a furnace and a forge in the im¬ 
mediate vicinity before-the Revolution. 

280. Buffalo Iron Works, a bloomary on Buffalo creek, 
one mile north of the State line, ten miles south-southeast of 
Shelby, owned and managed by Reuben Swan, New House P.O. 
Cleveland county North Carolina, built in 1850 and rebuilt 
in 1856, has 3 fires and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made 
in 1856 92 tons of bars. * 

281. Stices’ Shoals Bloomary Forge, on First Broad 
river in Cleveland county, three miles north of the mouth and 

I 


190 TABLE I.—BLOOMARY FORGES IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 

six miles west of Swan’s Forge, four miles soutli of Shelby, 
owned and managed by E. S. E. Chambers, Stices’ Shoals P.O. 
Cleveland county North Carolina, built in 1848 and rebuilt in 
1856, has 1 fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1857 about 24 tons of bars out of Ormand’s bank magnetic ore. 

282. Tumbling Shoals Bloomary Forge, on Second Broad 
river in Rutherford county thirteen miles southeast from Ruther¬ 
ford, fifteen miles west-southwest of Shelby, owned and managed 
by John W. Logan, Mooresborough, Cleveland county North 
Carolina, has 2 fires and 1 hammer, is driven by water, and 
made in 1856 perhaps 35 tons of bars out of magnetic ore. 

283. Cherokee Ford Bloomary Forge, on Broad river, 
twenty-four miles north-northwest of Yorkville, twenty-six miles 
northeast of Spartanburg, owned by the Swedish Iron Manufac¬ 
turing Company and managed by A. M. Latham, Cooperville 
P.O. Union District South Carolina, was built in 1840, has 4 
fires, one puddling furnace and one hammer and made in 1856 
about 240 tons of blooms for the rolling mill out of magnetic 
ore from the vicinity. It has 4 smith’s shops attached. 

284. Cherokee Iron Works Bloomary, situated on Broad 
river, owned by King’s Mountain Iron Company, and managed 
by M. M. Montgomery, Cherokee Iron Works P.O. York Dis¬ 
trict South Carolina, was built in 1836, has 3 bloomary and 2 
refinery fires, and 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 
1856 about 400 tons of blooms from magnetic ore. 

285. Helton Bloomary Forge, situated on Helton creek, 
ten miles north-northwest of Jefferson, owned and managed by 
William Gowing, Helton P.O. Ashe county North Carolina, 
was built in 1829, completed about 1834, has 2 fires and 1 
hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 15 tons of 
bars, from fine hematite ore two miles distant. 

286. Little Elk Creek Bloomary Forge, situated on Little 
Elk creek twenty-three miles northeast from Jefferson and seven 
miles southwest of Independence, owned and managed bv John 
McMillan, Potato creek P.O. Ashe county North Carolina, was 
built about 1825 and rebuilt about 1840, has 2 bloomary fires 
and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 4^ 

tons of bars. 

•» 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 


191 


287. Little River Bloomary Forge, situated on Little 
river about ten miles above the mouth and about seven miles 
from the Virginia line, owned by S. H. Thompson and J. W. 
Alexander’s heirs, J. II. Carson guardian, Glade Creek P.O. 
Ashe county North Carolina, "was built about 1827, has 2 
bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water and made in 
1855 about 18 tons of bars. 

288. Ballou’s Bloomary Forge, situated twelve miles northeast of Jefferson, 
owned by Meredith Ballou, North Fork New river Ashe county North Carolina, was 
built about 1817 and washed away in 1832. 

289. Old Bloomary Forge, situated on Little river was probably the first in the 
country before 1807, but was abandoned before 1817. 

290. Harbard’s Bloomary Forge, situated two miles below Helton’s on Helton 
river Ashe county North Carolina, was built about 1807 and washed away about 
1817. 

291. North Fork Bloomary Forge, situated eight miles northwest of Jefferson, 
Ashe county North Carolina, was built by McNabb about 1825, abandoned in 1829 
and swept off in 1840. 

292. Laurel Bloomary Forge, situated fifteen miles west of Jefferson, Ashe 
county North Carolina, was built by Michaels, Daniels, Worth & Murchison about 
1847 and abandoned in 1853. 

293. Cranberry Bloomary Forge, No. 1, situated on Cranberry creek, twelve 
miles east of Jefferson, Ashe county North Carolina, was built about 1832 and 
washed away in 1845. 

294. Cranberry Bloomary Forge, No. 2, situated fourteen 
miles south of Taylor’s store, on Cranberry creek, owned by 
Twitty, Miller, Bymun and others, leased and managed by J. 
C. Harden, Watauga county, built in 1820, rebuilt in 1856, has 
2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1857 about 17 tons of bars. 

295. Toe River Bloomary Forge, situated five miles south 
of Cranberry No. 2, in Watauga county, owned and managed 
by William Buchanan, Yellow Mountain P.O. Yancey county, 
built about 1813, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1856 about 1 tons of bars from magnetic 
ore of superior quality. 

296. Johnson’s Bloomary Forge, situated six miles south 
of Cranberry No. 1, owned and managed by Abraham Johnson, 
Cranberry P.O. Watauga county North Carolina, built in 1811, 
has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made 
in 1856 about 1£ tons of bars. 


I 


192 TABLE I.—BLOOMARY FOEGES IN NORTH CAROLINA. 

297. Lovinggood Bloomary Forge, situated on Hanging 
Dog creek, two miles above Fain Forge, owned and managed 
by G. W. & H. Lovinggood, Murphey P.O. Cherokee county 
North Carolina, built from 1845 to 1853, has 2 bloomary fires 
and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 13 tons 
of bars from lump ore. 

298. Lower Hanging Bogs Bloomary Forge, situated on 
Hanging Dog’s creek, five miles northwest of Murphey, owned 
by Joseph Hinson or others, Murphey P.O. Cherokee county, 
built in 1840, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1856 about 4 tons of bars from hematite ores 
4 miles southeast. 

299. Killian Bloomary Forge, situated a half mile below Hinson’s Bloomary, 
and four miles northwest of Murphey Bloomary, Cherokee county North Carolina, 
was built about 1843, abandoned in 1849, and is now in ruins. 

300. Fain Bloomary Forge, situated on Owl creek and two 
miles below Lovinggood Bloomary, owned by Mercer Fain, 
Murphey P.O. Cherokee county North Carolina, leased by 
James Dockry and others, built in 1854, has 2 bloomary fires and 
1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 24 tons of 
bars. 

301. Persimmon Creek Bloomary Forge, situated on 
Persimmon creek, twelve miles southwest of Murphey, owned 
by Walker & Stiles Persimmon creek P.O. Cherokee county 
North Carolina, built in 1848, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 ham¬ 
mer driven by water, and made in 1855 about 45 tons of bars 
from red ore, obtained on Notley river, 7 miles east of Kil¬ 
patrick bank. 

302. Shoal Creek Bloomary Forge, situated on Shoal 
creek five miles west of Persimmon creek Bloomary, owned by 
Spillman & Jones, Laurel Yalley P.O. Cherokee county North 
Carolina, built about 1854, has 1 bloomary fire and 1 hammer 
driven by water and made in 1854 about -J ton of bars. 

303. Sequee (Stoup’s) Bloomary Forge, at Sequee Furnace, three miles south 
of Clarksville, Habersham county Georgia, was built about 1830 and abandoned 
about 1835, and is in ruins. 

304. Hodge’s Bloomary Forge, in Habersham county Georgia, was abandoned 
very long ago. 

305. Mossy Creek Bloomary Forge, situated on Mossy 
creek eighteen miles northeast of Gainesville, and fifteen miles 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN GEORGIA. 


193 


southwest of Clarksville, owned by Wilkinson Smallwood, Polk- 
ville, Ilall county Georgia, and Horace Hinnon, Lee county, 
and leased by A. Cook, Habersham county, built about 1850, has 
1 tire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1855 perhaps 
21 tons of bars. 

306. Camp Creek Bloomary Forge, situated on Camp 
creek two miles south of Mossy creek Furnace, owned by Wil¬ 
kinson Smallwood, Polkville P.O. Hall county Georgia, built in 
1852, has 1 tire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1855 about 12 tons of bars. 

307. Poole Bloomary Forge, situated on Stamp creek close 
by Poole Furnace, and ten miles east of Cartersville, owned by 
B. G. Poole, Etowah P.O. Cass county Georgia, built in 1850, 
rebuilt in 1852, has 1 run-out tire, 1 heating fire, and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1855 perhaps 140 tons of blooms. 

It is now out of repair. 

308. Etowah Bloomary Forge, No. 1, situated one hundred yards above Eto¬ 
wah Furnace, on Stamp creek Cass county Georgia, was built in 1838 and torn down 
in 1841. 

309. Etowah Bloomary Forge, No. 2, situated at Etowah Furnace, on Stamp 
creek, Cass county Georgia, was built in 1841 and torn down about 1844. 

310. Allatoona Bloomary Forge, situated three miles north of Allatoona, near 
Allatoona Furnace on Allatoona creek, Cass county Georgia, was built about 1846, 
and torn down 1852. 

311. Ivy Log Bloomary Forge, situated on Ivy Log creek, has 2 fires and 1 
hammer, but is now abandoned. 

312. Hemptown Bloomary Forge, situated on Hemptown 
creek, fourteen miles southeast of Ducktown, and one mile and 
a quarter northwest of Morgantown, owned and managed by 
Heaton & Wilson, Morgantown P.O. Fannin county Georgia, 
built in 1852, has 1 fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1857 about 21 tons of bars. 

313. Aliculsie Bloomary Forge, situated about three miles from Tennessee* , 
State line on Aliculsie creek, Murray county Georgia, was built about 1843 and 
abandoned about 1848. 

314. Another bloomary forge, situated on Armuchy creek ten miles south of 
Lafayette on John McWilliams’ land, Walker county Georgia, was built about 1848 
and abandoned about 1850, has 2 fires and 1 hammer. 

315. Lookout Bloomary Forge, situated on Lookout creek four miles south 
of Trenton, Dade county Georgia, formerly owned by Benjamin Hawkins, Trenton 
P.O. was abandoned in 1851 and is in ruins. 

13 


I 


194 


TABLE I.—BLOOMARY FORGES IN ALABAMA.- 


316. Polkville Bloomary Forge, No. 1, situated on Cane 
creek at Polkville Furnace, five miles east of Coosa river, oppo¬ 
site the Ten Islands, owned by Goode & Morris, Morrisville P.O. 
Benton county Alabama, built in 1843, rebuilt in 1857, lias 1 
puddling fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 
perhaps 60 tons of blooms. 

317. Polkville Forge, No. 2, situated alongside of No. 1, 
has 1 heating fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1856 perhaps 54 tons of bars out of pig iron. 

318. Rob Roy Bloomary Forge, situated on Talladega 
creek one mile east of Eagle Bloomary and ten miles southeast 
of Talladega, owned by Win. Curry & Co. Kelly’s Springs P.O. 
Talladega county Alabama, built in 1853, has 2 fires and 1 
hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 20 tons of 
bars. 

319. Eagle Bloomary Forge, situated three miles above 
Maria Bloomary, on Talladega creek, owned and managed by 
John J. Mitchell, Bowdon P.O. Talladega county Alabama, 
built about 1846, rebuilt about 1852, has 2 fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1855 perhaps 9 tons of bars. 

320. Maria Bloomary Forge, situated on Talladega creek, 
five miles southeast of Talladega, owned by Kiddle & Kagan, 
Talladega P.O. Talladega county Alabama, built in 1842, has 2 
fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1855 35 tons 
of bars. 

321. Amerine Bloomary Forge, situated sixteen miles 
southeast of Talladega, on the creek, and on the road between 
Wedowee and Talladega, owned by Kichard and William Amer¬ 
ine Bow^don P.O. Talladega county Alabama, built in 1857, has 
* fires and 1 hammer driven by water, but is not yet in working 

rder. 

322. Chinnibe Bloomary Forge, situated seven miles east of Maria Bloomarv, " 
on Chinnibe creek, owned by Walker Reynolds, Mardisville, Talladega county Ala- > 
bama, built in 1851, but is now abandoned and in ruins. 

323. Camp Branch Bloomary Forge, situated eight miles 
southwest of Columbiana, owned and managed by Horace Ware, 
Columbiana P.O. Shelby county Alabama, built in 1S51, com- 

I 


i 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN ALABAMA. 195 


pleted in 1853, lias 1 puddling fire and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1855 perhaps 40 tons of blooms. 

324. Valley Bloomary Forge C, situated on Shoal creek, 
three hundred yards from Alabama Coal Company’s railroad, 
and three miles southwest of Montevallo, owned by J. George 
& Co. Montevallo P.O. Shelby county Alabama, built in 1857, 
but not in working order. 

325. Lower Yellow Leaf Bloomary Forge, twenty-five 
miles southeast of Montevallo, owned by J. George & Com¬ 
pany, Montevallo P.O. Shelby county Alabama, was building 
in 1857. 

326. Brantley’s Bloomary Forge, situated seven miles 
west of Montevallo, on Little Cahaw T ba river, owned Jby John 
Brantley Montevallo, Bibb county Alabama (in winter Burns¬ 
ville Dallas county), built from 1840 to 1853, has 4 bloomary 
fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 
40 tons of bars. 


327. Stroup’s Bloomary Forge, situated in Township 20, 
Bange Y. east of Huntsville, and fifteen miles northwest of 
Montevallo, owned by Moses Stroup, McMath’s P.O. Bibb 
county Alabama, built about 1837, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 
hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 15 tons of 
bars. 


328. Camp’s Blooma^y Forge, situated on Shoult’s creek 
nearly three miles east of Scottsville, owned by James Camp, 
Scottsville P.O. Bibb county Alabama, built in 1840, has 2 
* bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
. .1856 about 9 tons of bars. 


1 


329. Hill’s (Lewis’s) Bloomary Forge, situated two miles east (above) Brant¬ 

ley’s Bloomary, on the Little Cakawba river, was abandoned in 1841, and nearly 
allvgone. * 

330. Ware & Benson’s Bloomary Forge, situated a quarter of a mile above *• 
Camp’s Bloomary, on Shoult’s creek Bibb county Alabama, was abandoned nearly 
twenty years ago and removed to Camp’s Bloomary. 


331. Hill’s Bloomary Forge, Ho. 2, situated on Shoult’s 

creek three miles above Scottsville, Bibb county Alabama, 
% owned by James Hill, built in 1840, has 2 fires and 1 hammer 
driven*by water, and made in 1856 about 3 tons of bars. 

I 

*4 



/ 


196 TABLE I. —BLOOMARY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 


332. Fayette County Bloomary Forge, situated on Wil¬ 
son’s creek, twenty-five miles north-northeast of Columbus, and 
two miles northeast of Crossville, Fayette county Alabama, 
owned by Hale & Murdock, Columbus Lowndes county Mis¬ 
souri, and managed by William Lamb, Military Springs P.O. 
has 2 fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 
about 15 tons of bars. 

333. Ward Bloomary Forge, No. 1, situated seven miles north of Taylorsville, 
on the Laurel Fork of Holsten river, owned and managed by John Ward, Ward’s 
Forge P.O. Johnson county East Tennessee, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1855 50 tons of bars, but has been since torn 
down. 

334. Ward Bloomary Forge, Ho. 2, situated three hundred 
yards below the Ward Ho. 1, owned and managed by John 
Ward, Ward’s Forge P.O. Johnson county East Tennessee, built 
about 1849, has 2 bloomary fires and one hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1856 perhaps 50 tons of bars. 

335. Warden’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Laurel Fork of Holsten river, a 
half mile below the Ward Forge No. 2, owned by John J. Warden, Taylorsville 
P.O. Johnson county East Tennessee, was built in 1810, and wholly abandoned in 
1850. 

336. Wagner’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Roan’s creek, 
three miles above Ward’s Forge, owned by Mrs. Margaret 
Wagner, leased by John M. Hockaday, Johnson county East 
Tennessee, built in 1795, (?) has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1855 perhaps 3J tons of bars. 

337. Ward’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Roane’s creek 
six miles south of Taylorsville, owned by T. Ward and J. Wag¬ 
ner Jr. Shown’s Cross Roads, leased by Stout & Morely, Johnson 
county East Tennessee, built in 1851, has 2 bloomary fires and 
pj. hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 20 tons 
of bars. 

338. Sandhill Bloomary Forge, situated on Roane’s creek 
eight miles south of Taylorsville and two miles above Sand 
Spring Forge, owned and managed by A. B. Slimp, Baker’s 
Gap P.O. Johnson county, built in 1851, has 2 bloomary fires 
and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 35 tons 
of bars from hematite ore in the vicinity. 

I 



BLOOMARY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 


197 


339. Sand Spring Bloomary Forge, situated on Roane’s 
creek, nine miles south of Taylorsville, owned by C. K. Gillespie 
& wife, managed by J. J. Jones, Baker’s Gap P.O. Johnson 
county, built in 1836, rebuilt in 1845, has 2 bloomary fires and 
1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 25 tons 
of bars from hematite ore in the vicinity. 

340. Old Bloomary Forge, a quarter of a mile above Sand Spring Bloomary, 
was built about 1817, and abandoned in 1835, and is now quite gone. 

341. Dugger’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Watauga 
river, sixteen miles south of Taylorsville, and four miles above 
the mouth of Roane’s creek, owned by J. and W. Dugger, 
Cable’s Yalley P.O. Johnson county, built about 1807, has 2 
bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1856 about 2^ tons of bars. 

342. Murphy’s Upper Bloomary Forge, situated on Little 
Doe creek, twenty-five miles from and on the road to Elizabeth- 
ton, and eight miles southwest of Taylorsville, owned by 
Abraham Murphy, Pandora P.O. Johnson county New Jersey, 
{eased and managed by Charles Berry, built in 1852, has 2 
bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1856 about 40 tons of bars. 

343. Murphy’s Lower Bloomary Forge, situated nine 
miles southwest of Taylorsville, on Little Doe creek, and one 
mile southwest of Upper Bloomary, owned by Abraham Mur¬ 
phy, Pandora P.O. Johnson county East Tennessee, and leased 
by Benjamin Treadway, built in 1812, has 2 bloomary fires and 
1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1855 about 50 tons of 
bars. 

344. Howard’s Upper Bloomary Forge, situated on the 
iame stream and road as Murphy’s Bloomaries, and twenty-two 
miles from Elizabethton, owned and managed by Lloward & 
son,►Pandora P.O. Johnson county, built about 1815, rebuilt in 
1849, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1855 about 20 tons of bars. 

345. Howard’s Lower Bloomary Forge, situated one 
mile above the Upper, owned by Samuel Howard, Pandora 
P.O. and leased by Godfrey D. Heaton, Johnson county East 
Tennessee, built about 1827, rebuilt in 1851, has 2 fires and 1 


108 TABLE I.—BLOOMAKY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 


hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 20 tons of 
bars from lump ore in the neighborhood. 

346. Blevin’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Beaver Dam 
creek one mile below King’s Bloomary, and nine miles north¬ 
west of Taylorsville, owned by J. Thomas’s heirs and Butledge 
King, managed by Jesse Cole Jr. Shady P.O. Johnson county 
East Tennessee, built about 1817, rebuilt about 1837, has 2 
bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1856 about 7 tons of bars of hematite ore 3 miles distant. 

347. King’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Beaver Dam 
creek, twenty-five miles northwest of Elizabetliton, owned by 
James King Sen. managed by Jesse Cole Jr. Shady P.O. John¬ 
son county, built about 1821, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 ham¬ 
mer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 15 tons of bars. 

348. Stonedam Bloomary Forge, situated on Stony 
creek, one half mile above Speedwell Bloomary, owned and 
managed by John M. Smith, Elizabetliton P.O. Carter county 
East Tennessee, built in 1851, has 2 fires and 1 hammer driven 
by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 55 tons of bars from 
hematite ore from Hodge bank. 

349. Speedwell Bloomary Forge, situated on Stony 
creek, four miles above Union Furnace, owned by William 
Stover and Robert Cass, Elizabetliton P.O. Carter county 
East Tennessee, built about 1806, has 2 fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1856 about 40 tons of bars from 
ore 2 miles distant. 

350. Upper Carter Bloomary Forge, situated on Stony creek, at Union Fur¬ 
nace, owned by David W. Carter & Co. Elizabethton, was built in 1820 and re¬ 
built in 1841, and is now abandoned and in ruins. 

351. Lower Carter Bloomary Forge, situated on Stony 
creek, below Union Furnace, owned by David W. Carter & Co. 
Elizabethton, Carter county East Tennessee, built about 1810, 
rebuilt in 1845, has 2 refinery fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1856 about 9 tons of bars. 

352. Farm Hall Bloomary Forge, situated on Stony 
creek, four miles northeast of Elizabethton, owned and man¬ 
aged by John Have Jr., Elizabethton P.O. Carter county East 
Tennessee, built in 1811, rebuilt in 1838, has 2 bloomary fires 

I 



BLOOMARY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 


199 


and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 40 
tons of bars. 

353. Purlieu Bloomary Forge, situated on Doe river, 
three miles east of Elizabetbton, owned by J. K. Snapp’s heirs 
and others, John Leslie agent, Elizabethton P.O. Carter county 
East Tennessee, built about 1830, has 2 fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 12 tons of bars 
from brown hematite “ cold short ” and “ red short ” ores from 
openings south and east. 

354. Elizabethton Bloomary Forge, situated on Doe 
river, at the east end of Elizabethton, owned by David W. Car¬ 
ter & Co. Elizabethton Carter county, built about 1797, rebuilt 
in 1830, has 2 refinery fires, 1 chafery fire, and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1856 about 100 tons of bars, 
from charcoal pig. 

355. Reeves’ Bloomary Forge, situated on Watauga river, one mile below 
Elizabethton, owned by James J. Tipton, Elizabethton, Carter county East Tennes¬ 
see, built in 1839-40, and was abandoned in 1852. 

356. Hampton’s Bloomary Forge, situated nineteen 
miles east of Elizabethton on Doe river, leased and managed 
by Jenkins & Pierce, Doe river cove, Carter county East Ten¬ 
nessee, built in 1847, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven 
by water, and made in 1856 about 20 tons of bars from mag¬ 
netic ore. 

357. White’s Bloomary Forge, situated in Greasy cove, at White’s Furnace, 
was built thirty or forty years ago and abandoned in 1842. 

358. River Bend Bloomary Forge, 27o. 1, situated fif- 

# ' 

teen miles northeast of Elizabethton, on the south fork of Hol- 
ston river, owned by Joseph Meredith, River Bend, leased by 
O’Brien, Crumley & Godsey, Sullivan county East Tennessee, 
built in 1840, has 3 refinery fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made with 27o. 2 in 1854 about 175 tons of bars. 

359. River Bend Bloomary Forge, No., 2, adjoining 
No. 1, has the same owner,’and the products of both forges are 
united in No. 1. It has 1 fire and 1 hammer. 

360. Waterloo Bloomary Forge, situated on Beaver 
creek, three miles southwest of Paperville, and two miles south¬ 
west of Bristol, owned by Mrs. Cyrus King, Bristol P.O.. Sulli 

I 



200 TABLE I.-BLOOMARY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 

van county East Tennessee, built about 1830, has 2 bloomary 
fires % and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1855 about 
18 toils of bars, since when it has done nothing. 

351. Beaver Creek Upper Bloomary Forge, situated 
on Beaver creek, three miles below Waterloo Forge, leased by 
Adam & Benjamin Shipley, Bristol, Sullivan county, built 
about 1800, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1856 about 18 tons of bars from hematite 
ore from Sharp’s bank, 10 miles east. 

362. Beaver Creek Lower Bloomary Forge, one mile below the last, is in 

all respects like it and was abandoned in 1855. 

363. Old Bloomary Forge, situated at the junction of Beaver creek and the 
south fork of Holston river, was abandoned in 1832, and is now all gone. 

364. Cherokee Bloomary Forge, situated six miles south 
of Jonesborough, owned by Isaac Williams at Cox’s store, leased 
by Orville Nelson, Washington county East Tennessee, built 
about 1845, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1856 about 6 tons of bars from Cherokee 
hematite ore. 

365. Pine Grove Bloomary Forge, situated on Nolichucky river, eleven and 
a quarter miles below the Pleasant Valley Iron Works, owned and managed by 
James Mauk, Broylesville, Washington county East Tennessee, built about 1837, 
has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1855 2 tons of 
bars, but is now in ruins. 

366. Aikens’ Bloomary Forge, situated seven miles south of Jonesborough, 
on Limestone creek, has been abandoned for 20 years and is now all gone. 

367. Click’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Middle creek, 
eight miles east of Greenville, owned and managed by George 
Click, Camp creek P.O. Greene county East Tennessee, built 
in 1837, has 1 bloomary fire and 1 hammer driven by water 
and made in 1856 about 17 tons of bars. 

368. Alexander’s Bloomary Forge, situated a mile and 
a half below Click’s, owned by G. Alexander’s heirs, Stephen 
Jane administrator, leased by Wyatt & Jane, Camp creek, 
Greene county East Tennessee, built about 1835, has 1 bloomary 
fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 6 
tons of bars. 

369. Mountain Bloomary Forge, situated three miles 
south of Click’s on Watery fork of Camp creek, owned and 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 


201 


managed by James Jennings, Camp creek P.O. Greene county 
East Tennessee, built in 1837, rebuilt in 1853, has 2 bloomary 
fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1855 perhaps 
7 tons of bars. 

370. Camp Creek Bloomary Forge, situated on Camp 
creek, seven miles southeast of Greenville, owned by Balis 
Jones, Fannin, J. & T. Kennedy, leased by Waddle and others, 
Camp creek P.O. Greene county East Tennessee, built about 
1797, rebuilt in 1856, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven 
by water and made in 1856 perhaps 17 tons from hematite ores. 

371. Snapp’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Camp creek, 
two miles below Camp Creek Forge, owned and managed by J. 
P. & A. E. Snapp, Camp creek P.O. Greene county East Ten¬ 
nessee, built about 1836, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1856 about 25 tons of bars. 

372. Paint Creek Bloomary Forge, situated on Paint 
creek, three miles southeast from Jonesborough, to Warm Springs 
N. C. owned and managed by Montgomery Stuart, Limestone 
Springs P.O. Greene county East Tennessee, built about 1851, 
has 1 bloomary fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made 
in 1856 about 7 tons of bars from hematite ore, from Cove creek 
bank. 

373. Kelly’s Bloomary Forge, situated sixteen miles south of Click’s Forge, 
owned by Daniel H. Kelly, Limestone Springs, Greene county East Tennessee, was 
built in 1846, but abandoned about 1852 and is now in ruins. 

374. Allen’s Bloomary Forge, situated four miles above Kelly’s Forge, Greene 
county East Tennessee, built about 1827, was abandoned about 1830, and is now 
quite gone. 

375. Canada’s Bloomary Forge, situated about thirteen miles west of Click’s 
Forge, Greene county East Tennessee, was built in 1841 or ’42, and washed away 
about 1847. 

376. Brown’s Bloomary Forge, situated twenty-one miles west of Click’s Forge 
on Nolichucky river, Greene county East Tennessee, was built about 1827 and 
abandoned soon afterwards and is now in ruins. 

377. Erpes’ Bloomary Forge, situated on Causby creek, thirteen miles south 
of Newport, owned by Mr. Harper, Cocke county East Tennessee, was built between 
1837 and ’39, abandoned about 1847, and is now all gone. 

378. Mossy Creek Bloomary Forge, situated ten miles north of Dandridge, 
Jefferson county East Tennessee, was built about 1795 and abandoned 46 years ago. 

379. Dumpling Bloomary Forge, situated five miles west of Dandridge, Jeffer¬ 
son county East Tennessee, built about 1795, was abandoned 45 years ago. 


I 


202 TABLE I.—BLOOMAEY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 

380. Pigeon Bloomary Forge, situated on west fork of 
Little Pigeon river, seven miles south of Sevierville, Sevier 
county East Tennessee, owned and managed by John Trotter, 
Pigeon Forge P.O. built about 1820, has 1 bloomary fire and 
1 hammer driven by water and made in 1856 perhaps 2 tons 
of bars. 

381. Love’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Little East Fork of Little Pigeon 
river, built by Wm. & James Love in 1837, Sevier county East Tennessee, was aban¬ 
doned about six years ago. 

382. Amerine Bloomary Forge, situated on Hess’s creek, 
in Miller’s cove, ten miles south-southeast of Marysville, owned 
and managed by George Amerine, Marysville or Tuckaleechee, 
Blount county East Tennessee, built about 1845, has 2 bloomary 
fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 
15 tons of bars. 

383. Shield’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Little river, in Tuckaleechee cove, 
six miles east of Amerine Forge, Blount county East Tennessee, was built in 1843 
and washed away, and but little of the ruins are remaining. 

384. Abram’s Creek Forge, situated on Abram’s creek, six miles south of 
Amerine Forge, owned by Davis Fout, Blount county East Tennessee, built about 
1627, was abandoned in 1853, and is now nearly gone. 

385. Cade’s Cove Bloomary Forge, situated ten miles south of Amerine 
Forge, owned by Davis Fout, Cade’s cove, Blount county East Tennessee, built 
about 1827, was abandoned in 1847, and now nearly gone. 

386. Tellico Bloomary Forge, situated on Tellico river 
at the upper end of Tellico Plains, owned by the Tellico 
manufacturing company, Elisha Johnson President and man¬ 
ager, Tellico Plains, Monroe county East Tennessee, built about 
1825 and rebuilt 1837, has 3 refinery and one chafery fires, 2 
hammers driven by water, and made in 1855 perhaps 225 tons 
of bars. 

387. Cooke’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Connesauga 
creek, three miles from Monroe county, and fourteen miles 
southeast of Athens, owned and managed by Daniel Thompson, 
Connesauga P.O. McMinn county East Tennessee, built in 
1823, rebuilt in 1843, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven 
by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 10 tons of bars. 

388. Overton’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Mulberry 
creek, five miles from the Virginia line, and six miles south of 
Milam Forge, owned by Taylor Overton, Woodson’s P.O. Han- 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN 'IASTERN TENNESSEE. 


203 


cock county East Tennessee, was built about 1841, rebuilt in 

1856, lias 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
makes bars. 

J 389. Belleville Bloomary Forge, situated on Indian 
creek, at Belleville Furnace, five miles east of Cumberland Gap, 
owned by Reuben Rose, Tazewell, and George W. Rose, Cum¬ 
berland Gap, Claiborne county East Tennessee, has one bloom¬ 
ary, 2 refinery fires, and one hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1856 about 30J tons of bars. 

390. Little Barren Bloomary Forge, situated eleven miles 
west of Tazewell, and twenty-two miles south of Cumberland 
Gap, owned liy William Kincade’s heirs, I. Thomas, administra¬ 
tor, Old Town, Claiborne county East Tennessee, built about 
1853, has 1 bloomary fire and 1 hammer driven by water. 

391. Centreville Bloomary Forge, situated on Davis’s 
creek, five miles east of Fincastle, owned by Elisha McNew, 
Well Spring P.O. Campbell county East Tennessee, built about 
1827, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1856 about 6 tons of bars. 

392. Speedwell Bloomary Forge, situated three miles west of Centreville 
Forge, eight miles southwest of Yocum’s station, was built about 1815 and aban¬ 
doned about 1830. 

393. Baker Bloomary Forge, situated on Cedar creek, 
eleven miles east-northeast of Jacksborough, owned by John 
Comer and David Johnson, Fincastle P.O. Campbell county 
East Tennessee, built about 1817, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 
hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 8 tons of 
bars. 

394. Richardson’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Big 

creek, two miles south-soutliwest of Sharp’s Forge, owned by 
William Richardson, Jacksborough P.O. Campbell county East 
Tennessee, built in 1827 or ’28, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 
hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 20 tons of 
bars. » 

395. Sharp’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Big creek, five 
miles northeast of Jacksborough, owned by Laban Sharp, 
Jacksborough P.O. Campbell county East Tennessee, built in 

1857, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water. 

I 


4 


r 


# 

204 TABLE I.—BLOOMARY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 

396. Queener Bloomary Forge, situated on Ccve creek, 
two miles south of Jacksborougli, owned by David Sharp, 
Jacksborough P.O. Campbell county East Tennessee, built 
about 1835, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1856 about 22 tons of bars from dyestone 
ore in the vicinity. 

397. Lindsay Bloomary Forge, situated on Cove creek, 
about fourteen miles west of Miller’s Eurnace, and two miles 
east-southeast of Queener Furnace, owned by J. S. Lindsay and 
Squire Hunter, Jacksborough P.O. Campbell county East 
Tennessee, was built about 1833, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 
hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 20 tons of 
bars. 

398. England’s Bloomary Forge, situated at the lower end of Anderson 
county in East Tennessee, on the Brushey Fork of Poplar creek, built about 1832 
and abandoned 9 years ago. 

399. Butler’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Poplar creek, Anderson county 
East Tennessee, built about 1825 and abandoned twenty years ago. 

400. Cobb’s Bloomary Forge, situated six miles northwest of Campbell’s 
Station, at the mouth of Beaver creek, owned by Archibald Cobb, Knox county 
East Tennessee, and abandoned in 1853. 

401. Emory’s Bloomary Forge, situated at the junction of Emory river and 
Poplar creek, Roane county East Tennessee, built between 1817 to 1827, and aban¬ 
doned in 1846. 

402. Eagle Bloomary Forge, No. 1, situated a quarter mile south of Eagle 
No. 2, Roane county East Tennessee, was built in 1848, abandoned in 1850, and 
replaced by a Grist and Saw Mill. 

403. Gordon’s Eloomary Forge, situated fifteen miles 
southwest of Kingston, Roane county East Tennessee, owned by 
George W. Short, Eagle Furnace, built in 1822, rebuilt about 
1834, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1856 about 16^- tons of bars. 

404. Eagle Bloomary Forge, Ho. 2, situated on White’s 
creek, at Eagle Furnace, owned by East Tennessee Iron Manu¬ 
facturing Company, P. Cravens, agent, Chattanooga, managed 
by S. Hardbarger, Eagle Furnace, Roane county East Tennessee, 
built in 1855, has 1 bloomary fire and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1856 about 7 tons of bars. 

405. Turnpike Bloomary Forge, situated sixteen miles 
southwest of Kingston, owned ly Alexander Robbs, Eagle Fur- 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 


205 


nace P.O. Eoane county East Tennessee, built in 1847 or ’48, 
has 1 bloomary fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made 
in 1856 about 8 tons of bars. 

406. Montgomery’s Bloomary Forge, situated on White’s 
creek, on Gordon’s turnpike, eighteen miles southwest of Kings¬ 
ton, owned by Alexander Montgomery, Eagle Furnace, Roane 
county East Tennessee, managed by Robert Thompson, built 
about 1838, rebuilt in 1848, has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1856 about 18 tons of bars. 

407. Kimbrough’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Turnpike 
creek, thirteen miles west of Kingston, owned by Joseph Kim¬ 
brough, Belleville P.O. Koane county East Tennessee, managed 
by Robert Kimbrough, built about 1832, rebuilt about 1845, 
has 2 bloomary fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made 
in 1856 about 8-J tons of bars from dyestone ore in the vicinity. 

403. Upper Finey Bloomary Forge, situated on Piney 
creek ten miles southwest of Eagle Furnace, owned by H. P. 
Caldwell, Rhea Springs P.O. Rhea county East Tennessee, 
managed by William Fullington, built in 1848, has 1 bloomary 
fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 about 
10 tons of bars. 

409. Lower Piney Bloomary Forge, situated on Piney 
creek, a mile below Upper Piney Forge, owned by E. E. Waston, 
Rhea Springs, leased by William T. Lowry, Rhea county East 
Tennessee, built about 1849, uses 2 of its 3 bloomary fires, has 1 
hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 6J tons of bars. 

410. Richland Bloomary Forge, situated on Piney creek, Rhea county East 
Tennessee, built about 1847, abandoned in 1852, and now in ruins. 

411. Farmer’s Bloomary Forge, situated on Fire creek three miles north of 
Decatur, claimed by Col. M. Johnson, Tellico Plains, and by others, Meigs county 
East Tennessee, built about 1843, abandoned in 1852 and ’3, and now in ruins. 


412. West Fort Ann Bloomary and Forge, Ko. 1, 

situated on a branch of Wood creek, five miles west of Fort 
Ann, Washington county Kew York, owned and managed by 
Caleb Kingsley, built in 1802, rebuilt about 1842, has 1 bloom¬ 
ary fire, 1 blacksmith fire, and 2 hammers driven by water, 
and made in 1854 about 25 tons of anchors and cranks. 


I 


206 TABLE I.-BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

♦ 

413. West Fort Ann Bloomary and Forge, No. 2, 

a quarter of a mile above No. 1, on tlie same stream, leased by 
A. H. Wheeler, West Fort Ann, Washington county New 
York, built in 1828, has 1 bloomary fire and 2 blacksmith fires 
with 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1856 about 40 
tons of anchors and cranks. 

414. Penfield’s Bloomary, situated in Irondale on Putt’s 
creek, six miles west of Crown Point, owned by Penfield, Har¬ 
wood & Company, Crown Point P.O. Essex county New York, 
built in 1847, has 4 bloomary fires and 2 hammers driven by 
water, and made in 1856 about 500 tons of blooms. 

415. Schroon River Bloomary, situated on the west 
branch of Schroon river, one mile south of Root’s tavern, 
owned by E. B. Walker and county, managed by Jacob Par- 
merter, Essex county New York, built in 1857, has 2 bloomary 
fires, 1 blacksmith fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
makes blooms out of magnetic ore. 

416. North Hudson Iron Works, on the west bank of 
Schroon river and the State road, eighteen miles south of Eliza¬ 
bethtown, owned by James S. Whallon, Wliallonsburg P.O. 
Essex county New York, has 3 bloomary and 1 forge fire, with 
1 hammer driven by water, and makes blooms out of magnetic 
ore. 

417. Bead Water Bloomary, situated on the east bank of 
the stream, and 13 miles south of Elizabethtown, owned by 
James S. Whallon, Whallonsburg P.O. Essex county New 
York, has 4 bloomary fires, 1 blacksmith fire, 1 hammer 
driven by water, and makes blooms out of magnetic ore. 

418. Noble’s Bloomary, situated at the outlet of Black 
pond, six miles southeast of Elizabethtown, Essex county New 
York, owned and v managed by Henry R. Noble, built about 
1825 and rebuilt in 1845, has 2 fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1854 about lf<) tons of blooms out of Sand- 
ford and Haasz magnetic ore. 

419. New Russia Bloomary, situated on Bouquet river and 
the State road, twelve miles west of Westport and four miles 
south of Elizabethtown, owned and managed by Hiram Put- 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 


207 


nam, New Russia P.O. Essex county New York, was built 
about 1847 and rebuilt in 1856, has 3 bloomary and 1 forge 
fire with 1 hammer driven'by water, and made in 1856 about 
425 tons of blooms out of Barton magnetic ore. 

420. Elizabethtown Ironworks, on Bouquet river at the 
north end of the village, owned by James S. Wliallon, Wlial- 
lonsburg P.O. Essex county New York, was repaired in 1856, 
lias 5 bloomary and 1 forge fire with 1 hammer driven by 
water and steam, and made in 13 weeks 170 tons of blooms. 

421. Westport Bloomary, on Bouquet river, four miles 
north of Westport, Essex county New York, owned and man¬ 
aged by William P. and P. D. Merriam, has 3 bloomary and 1 
forge fire with 1 hammer driven by water, and has made about 
600 tons of blooms per annum out of Moriah magnetic ore. 

422. Whallonsburg Bloomary, on Bouquet river, in the 
village, four miles southwest of Essex, in Essex county New 
York, owned by James S. Wliallon, lias 4 fires with 2 hammers 
driven by water, and makes blooms out of magnetic ore. 

423. Wilder’s Bloomary, on the north branch of Bouquet 
river and the State road, four miles north of Elizabethtown, 
Essex county New York, owned and managed by A. H. 
Wilder, Lewis P.O. was built about 1844, has 2 bloomary and 
1 forge fire with 1 hammer driven by water, and has made 
about 500 tons of blooms out of Moriah magnetic ore. 

424. Merriam’s Bloomary, on the north branch of 
Bouquet river, two miles east of the State road, six miles east of 
north of Elizabethtown, owned and managed by J. L. Merriam, 
Lewis P.O. Essex county New York, was built about 1837 and 
rebuilt 1853, has 3 bloomary and 1 forge fire with 1 hammer 
driven by water, and made in 1856 about 760 tons of blooms 
out of Moriah magnetic ore. 

425. Willsborough Bloomary, in the village of Wills- 
borough, Essex county New York, on Bouquet river, two miles 
west of Lake Champlain, owned by the heirs of William D. 
Ross and managed by II. II. Ross, was built about 1800, 
rebuilt 1850, has 5 bloomary and 1 forge fire with 2 hammers 
driven by water, and made in 1855 about 1,000 tons of blooms 
5 ut of Moriah ore. 


I 


208 TABLE I. -BLOOMAEY FOEGES IN NOETnEEN NEW YOEK. 

426. Highland Bloomary, on Howard Brook, at the outlet 
of Warm Bond, one mile west of Lake Champlain, seven 
miles south of Keesville, owned and managed by A. G. Forbes, 
Port Ivendall P.O. Essex county Hew York, was built about 
1837, has 2 bloomary and 1 forge fire with 1 hammer driven 
by water, and has made about 100 tons of blooms per annum 
out of Moriah magnetic ore. 

427. Port Kendall Bloomary, one mile ea9t of Highland Forge last described, 
was abandoned many years ago. 

428. Purmort’s Bloomary, on the south branch of Ausable 
river in the village of Jay, in Essex county Hew York, six miles 
south of Ausable Forks, owned and managed by J. H. Purmort 
& Company, built in 1809 and rebuilt in 1857, has 4 bloomary 
and 1 forge fire with 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 
1855 about 500 tons of blooms out of Arnold's magnetic ore. 

428.5. Two forges, small and doing but little, Situated above “ Purmort’s,” on the 
same stream, were destroyed by the same freshet, and will not be rebuilt. 

429. Ausable Bloomary, on the south bank of West Au¬ 
sable river, twelve miles west of Keesville, and in the village of 
Ausable Forks, Essex county Hew York, is owned and managed 
by J. & J. Rogers, was built in 1848, has 4 bloomary and 6 
forge fires with 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 
912 tons of blooms out of Palmer’s magnetic ore. 

430. Upper Blackbrook Bloomary, on the east bank of 
Blackbrook, in Blackbrook village, Clinton county Hew York, 
four miles northwest of Ausable Rolling Mill, is owned and 
managed like the last described, was built in 1832, rebuilt in 
1855, has 4 bloomary and 2 forge fires with 1 hammer driven 
by water and made in conjunction with the next in 1855 2,525 
tons of blooms out of magnetic ore. 

431. Lower Blackbrook Bloomary, situated and owned 
like the last, was built in 1832 and enlarged in 1857, has 8 
bloomary and 4 forge fires with 2 hammers driven by water, 
and made in 1856 (in connection with the last) 2,189 tons of 
blooms out of magnetic ore. 

432. Hew Sweden Bloomary, on the north bank of Au¬ 
sable river, two miles west of Clintonville, owned and managed 
by William Y. K. McLean, Hew Sweden P.O. Clinton county 

1 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 


209 


New York, was built in 1822 and rebuilt in 1816, has 2 fires 
and 1 hammer driven by water, made in 1851 280 tons of blooms 
out of Jackson’s & Nelson’s ores, and lias made nothing since. 
The great freshet of October 1816 did it much damage. 

432.5. A Forge, erected in 1844 by Philip T. Brewster, stood nearly opposite 
the New Sweden Works, and was run till 1853. The great freshet of 1850 removed 
every vestige of the works. The last occupants were Messrs. Brockway and Brig¬ 
ham ; it had 2 fires and 1 hammer, and made in 1852 about 200 tons of iron out of 
Arnold & Nelson magnetic ore. 

433. Upper Clintonville Bloomary, in the village of 
Clintonville, Clinton county New York, on the north bank of 
the Ausable river, six miles west of Keesville, owned by Saltus 
& Company, 7 Beaver street New York city, has 1 fires, is driven 
by water and makes blooms out of magnetic ore. 

434. Lower Clintonville Bloomary, situated owned and 
dr^en like the last, has 15 fires. 

435. Cook’s Bloomary, in the village of Cocksackie, Clinton county New York, 
on the Little Sable river, was last worked by Kingsland of Keesville, had 4 fires, and 
is abandoned. 

436. Honsinger’s Bloomary, in Peaseville, Clinton county 
N ew York, on the Salmon river, five miles southwest of Norris- 
ville, is owned and managed by A. W. Honsinger Schuyler’s 
Falls P.O. was built in 1845, rebuilt in 1856, has 2 bloomary 
and 1 forge fire with 1 hammer driven by water and made in 
1855 about 200 tons of blooms out of Tremble’s magnetic ore. 

437. Upper Norrisville Bloomary, on the north bank of 
the Salmon river, two and a half miles west of Schuyler’s Falls 
P.O. Clinton county New York, is owned and managed by 
Albert Norris, was built in 1857, has 2 fires and 1 hammer 
driven by water and makes blooms out of magnetic ore. 

437.5. An old disused forge which occupied this site was destroyed by the 
freshet of 1856. 

437.6. An old forge standing forty rods above the last mentioned, lay idle two 
years before the freshet of 1856. A saw-mill now occupies its site. 

438. Norrisville Bloomary, situated, owned and managed 
like the last, was built in 1822, rebuilt in 1848 and 1S56, has 3 
bloomary and 1 forge fire with 1 hammer driven by water, and 
made in 1855 531 tons of blooms out of Moriah magnetic ore. 

14 I 


210 TABLE I.-BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 

43 9. Merchant’s Bloomary, on the south bank of Salmon 
river, half a mile west of Schuyler’s Falls P.O. Clinton county 
Hew York, nine miles south of Plattsburg, is owned by Henry 
P. Merchant and leased by Elisha Ilare, has 2 bloomary and 1 
forge fife with 1 hammer driven by water and made in 1856 
230 tons of blooms out of magnetic ore. 

440. Myers’ Bloomary and Forge, on the west bank of 
the South Saranac, at the Forks village, Clinton county Hew 
York, is owned and managed by L. Myers & Son, Plattsburg 
P.O. was built in 1844 and rebuilt in 1853, has 6 bloomary asjd 
2 forge fires, 1 heating furnace and 3 hammers driven by water, 
and made in 1856 601 tons of blooms, bars and axles. 

441. Russia Bloomary, No. 1 , on the south bank of the Saranac, one mile, west 
of the Falls village, in Clinton county New York, is held by the assignees of Hewitt 
& Stoddart, has 4 fires and 2 hammers driven by water, made perhaps 1,000 tons 
of blooms and bars per annum previous to 1856, but is now abandoned. 

442. Russia Bloomary, Ho. 2, situated like the last, but 
owned by G. & G. H. Parsons, Saranac P.O. Clinton county 
Hew York, was built in 1845, rebuilt in 1847, has 4 bloomary 
and 1 forge fire and uses 1 of its 2 hammers driven by water, 
making about 500 tons of blooms and bars per annum, out of 
magnetic ore from Tremble’s bed and Bedford. 

443. Piatt’s Bloomary, situated in Saranac village, on the 
north bank of the river, one mile east of Russia Bloomary last 
described and seventeen miles west of Plattsburg, is owned bv 
M. K. Platt, managed by H. C. Boynton, Saranac P.O. Clinton 
county Hew York, was built in 1845, has 4 bloomary and 1 
forge fire with 1 hammer driven by water and makes about 800 
tons of blooms per annum out of various surrounding magnetic 
ores. 

444. Elsinore Bloomary, on the north bank of the Saranac 
river, one mile west of Cadyville, and twelve miles west of 
Plattsburg P.O. Clinton county Hew York, is owned and man¬ 
aged by A. Williams, was built in 1845, has 3 bloomary and 1 
forge fire, uses 1 of its 2 hammers driven by water, and made 
in 1856 625 tons of blooms out of magnetic ore. 

445. Danemora Bloomary Forge, within the inclosure of 
the State Prison pickets in the village of Danemora, Clinton 

I 


BLOOMARY FORGES IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. 


211 


county New York, owned by the State and leased by E. & J. 
D. Kingsland & Company, was built in 1854, has 10 bloomary 
. and 2 forge tires with 2 hammers driven by steam and made in 
1856 about 2,000 tons of blooms out of magnetic ore mined in 
the inclosure. 

446. Stone Bloomary, on the south bank of Saranac river, 
below Cadyville, ten miles west of Plattsburg, Clinton county 
New York, is owned by Eli Chittenden of Burlington Vermont, 
and managed by Josiah Hayden, has 6 tires and 1 hammer 
cfr>en by water, and made in 1854 about 600 tons of blooms 
and bars, but nothing since, out of State Prison magnetic ore. 

447. Weston Bloomary, in the town of Plattsburg, on the 
Saranac river, near its mouth, owned and managed by Z. N. 
"Weston, Plattsburg, Clinton county New York, was built in 
18o6, has 6 fires and 3 hammers driven by water and makes 
about 300 tons of blooms per annum, out of Moriah magnetic 
ore. 

448. Brasher Bloomary Forge, on Deer river, in Brasher 
Iron Works village, near the furnace, owned and managed by 
J. W. Skinner, Ogdensburg P.O. St. Lawrence county New 
York, was built in 1835, rebuilt in 1857, with 2 bloomary, 1 
forge fire and 1 hammer driven by water, and made in 1856 
about 75 tons of merchant bars, out of bog ore from Franklin 
county, and some scrap. 

449. Brasher Centre Bloomary Forge, on St. Begis river, 
six miles from the Northern railroad and five miles from Brasher 
Falls P.O. St. Lawrence county New York, is owned and man¬ 
aged by Jonas Crapser, was built in 1849, has 3 bloom ary fires, 
1 forge fire and 2 hammers, driven by water, and makes about 
35 tons of merchant bars per annum out of bog ore from the 
vicinity. 

450. Norfolk Bloomary, near the last, has been abandoned these ten years and 
is in ruins. 

451. Waddington Bloomary, on the St. Lawrence river in Madrid township 
St. Lawrence county New York, has been abandoned these ten years and is in 
ruins, \ 

452^ Fuller ville Forge, alongside of the furnace, in the 
village of Fullerville, St. Lawrence county New York, owned 

* I 


i 


212 TABLE I.—FORGES IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 

and managed by Fuller & Peck, was built in 1S33, has 2 fires 
and 1 hammer driven by water, and makes about 50 tons of 
bars per annum out of pig metal and scrap iron. 

453. Westfield Forge, in Franklin county New York, has been out of blast for 
a long time. 

454. Sterlingville Forge, on Black creek below the fur¬ 
nace in the village of Sterlingville, Jefferson county New York, 
owned and managed by Caleb Essington, has 3 bloomary and 1 
forge fire with 1 hammer driven by water, and makes about 40 
tons of draught iron bars per annum out of scrap and pig. 

455. Jefferson Forge, on the east bank of Black river, in 
the village of Carthage, Jefferson county New York, owned 
and managed by Hiram McCollom, was built about 1818, and 
rebuilt in 1847, with 3 fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and 
makes about 150 tons of blooms and bars per annum out of pig 
metal and some scrap iron. 

456. Felson’s Forge, on the south side of Castlemann’s river, Milford township, 
on the line of the Turkey Foot turnpike, eight miles above the Turkey Foot, and 
fifteen miles south of Somerset, in Somerset county Pennsylvania, was going about 
35 years ago. It hauled its pig metal across the Alleghany mountains from Bedford 
county. 

457. Scott’s Forge, on Laurel Hill creek in Jefferson Township, Somerset county 
Pennsylvania, two miles below Bakersville, on the Cumberland and Pittsburg Plank 
Road, also hauled its metal from Bedford, and was abandoned thirty years ago. 

458. Fairchance Forge, attached to the Furnace and Rolling Mill, eight miles 
south of TJniontown, Fayette county Pennsylvania, has been owned by F. H. 0. 
Oliphant for twenty years and by his father for forty years previously, and worked 
up the pig iron of the furnace before the rolling mill was built. 

459. Brownsville Forge, in Brownsville, Fayette county Pennsylvania, once 
owned by G. W. Cass & Company, is very old and was abandoned some years ago. 

459.2. Pennsylvania Forge, in Pittsburg one mile above 
the Moyamensing Bridge, owned by Everson, Preston & Com¬ 
pany, office 94 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany county Penn¬ 
sylvania, was built in 1844, has about 11 puddling, 8 heating 
furnaces, and 2 hammers, one a Nasmyth, driven by steam, and 
made shapes as well as bar iron. See Bolling Mill Table J. 
No. 158. 

459.4. Sheffield Works, in South Pittsburg, owned by 
Singer, Hartman & Company, 82 Water street, has 4 puddling 
and 9 heating furnaces, 5 converters, 6 forge fires for making 

I 


K 


FORGES IN PENNSYLVANIA AND OHIO. 213 

charcoal blooms and 2 hammers. It makes vices, axles, axes, 
springs, etc. See Rolling Mill Table J. No. 156. 

459.6. Duquesne Works, in Pittsburg, owned by Coleman, 
Heilman & Company, 121 Water street, is a rolling mill (see J. 
165), but has 3 hammers. 

459.8. West Point Forge, owned by D. Fawcet & Com¬ 
pany, makes heavy shafting and every variety of shapes like the 
Pennsylvania Forge, and with the latter is reported to have 
consumed in 1857 (S. II. Thurston) 1,950 tons of bar iron and 
220,000 bushels coal, employing 57 men and producing $224,500 
worth of work. Besides these, the Eagle and Lippincott Works 
(see Rolling Mill Table J. 157, 162), Postley, Nelson & Com¬ 
pany’s, 22 Market street, founded in 1843, and the Empire 
Works, Newmyer & Graff, 22 Wood street, founded in 1854, 
manufacture shovels aild axes, consuming in 1856 the four 
together 3,173 tons of bar and sheet iron, 570 tons of steel, 
394,000 bushels coal and coke and make 44,000 dozen axes, 
32,000 dozen shovels, 13,500 dozen picks and mattocks, 11,000 
dozen planter’s hoes, and 2,500 vices, besides saw blades. 
(Thurston.) 

460. Sample’s Forge, at Sample’s Landing on the Ohio fifteen miles below Gal- 
lipolis, bloomed for McNichol’s Mill at Covington opposite Cincinnati up to about 
1842, when it was abandoned. 

461. Benner’s Forge, near Chilicothe, Ross county Ohio, on Paint creek, was 
once owned by James & Woodruff and has been abandoned for some years. 

462. Steam Forge, at Steam Furnace on Brush creek in Adams county Ohio, 
was abandoned about twenty years ago. 

463. Scioto Forge, in Adams county Ohio, perhaps five miles up the Little 
Scioto river, was managed by Mr. Wurtz in 1853 and had 3 refinery or knobling 
fires, 1 puddling furnace and 1 hammer. 

464. Brush Creek Forge, in Adams, eight miles perhaps up Brush creek, was 
run at different times by Voorhies, Fisher & Means, and abandoned years ago. 

465. Twelvepole Forge, at the Shoals of Twelvepole creek, six miles above 
Cerido on the Ohio in Greenup county Kentucky, was an old forge which has 
entirely disappeared. 

466. Fulton Forge, on the south bank of the Ohio, three miles east of Green- 
upsburg, in Greenup county Kentucky, was built about 1830 by Pauli, Shreve & Com¬ 
pany, with abont 12 knobling fires, male Bellefonte Furnace pig into Cincinnati 
blooms, and was abandoned about 1847. 


I 


214 


TABLE I.—FORGES IN NORTHEAST KENTUCKY. 


467. Enterprise Forge, six miles west of Greenupsburg, in Greenup county 
Kentucky, once run by Clingman, with 4 knobling fires, was an old and important 
iron-works in its day. 

468. Shreeve’s Forge, one mile south of Greenupsburg, in Greenup county 
Kentucky, at the falls of Little Sandy, was an old works, and abandoned many 
years ago. 

469. East Fork Forge, six miles south of Greenupsburg, in Greenup county 
Kentucky, on East Fork of Little Sandy, was an old works long ago abandoned. 

470. Argolite Forge, eight miles south of Greenupsburg, in Greenup county 
Ky., at Argolite Furnace on the Little Sandy, was abandoned twenty years ago. 

471. Ward’s Forge, fourteen miles south of Greenupsburg, in Greenup county 
Kentucky, at Pactolus Furnace on Little Sandy, was abandoned many years ago. 

471.5. Old Hopewell Forge, in Greenup county, abandoned. 

472. Beaver Forge, sixty miles south of Greenupsburg, on Licking river, in 
Estill county Kentucky, was abandoned many years ago. 

473. Red River Forge, in Estill county Kentucky, at the 
Rolling-mill on Red river, twenty miles north of Irvine and 
thirty-eiglit east of Lexington, was built about 1810, has 3 
knobling furnaces and 1 hammer driven by water, and makes 
about 250 tons of bars per annum. 

474. Nolin’s Iron Works, in Edmondson county Kentucky, sixty miles south¬ 
west of Louisville, at the east end of the West Kentucky coal-field, was abandoned 
years ago. 

475. Elizabeth Forge, in Crittenden county Kentucky, two miles northeast of 
Dycusburg, owned by G. D. Cobb, is an old works, abandoned. 

476. Union Forge, on the right bank of the Cumberland 
river, three miles from Suwannee Furnace, two miles below 
Eddyville, in Lyon county Kentucky, owned by Kelly & Com¬ 
pany, and managed by John B. Evans, was built about 1840 
and rebuilt in 1854, has 8 knobling fires and 1 hammer driven 
by steam, and made in 1856 about 1,000 tons of blooms out of 
pig iron. 

477. Tennessee Iron Works, on the right bank of the 
Cumberland river, ten miles above Eddyville, in Lyon county 
Kentucky, owned by Hillman, Brothers, and managed bv 
George Hillman, was built in 1846, has 22 knobling or refining 
fires, 1 puddling furnace and 1 hammer driven by steam, and 
made in 1856 3,384 tons of blooms out of pig metal with a little 
scrap. 

I 


FOEGES IN TENNESSEE. 


215 


478. Randolph Forge, connected with Dover Furnace No. 
2 (K. 575) and the Cumberland Ironworks (J. 207) by eight or 
nine miles of the finest cinder road in Tennessee, and situated 
six miles northwest of the latter, is owned by Woods, Lewis 
& Company, Cumberland Iron Works P.O. Stewart county 
Tennessee, and managed by A. P. Parrish, was built in 1852, 
has 2 forge and 18 knobling fires with 2 hammers driven by 
steam, and made in 1857 2,689 gross tons of blooms. 

479. Riron Forge, on Wells creek, four miles northeast 
from Ashland Furnace, and three miles west of Bowling Green 
P.O. Stewart county Tennessee, is owned and managed by 
H. H. Hollister and Brother, was built about 1830, has 1 cupola 
run out, and 4 knobling fires with 2 hammers driven by steam, 
and made in 1856 about 300 tons of bais, plough-moulds, and 
other shapes. 

480. Yellow Creek Forge, at Yellow creek Furnace, 
K. 580, in Montgomery county Tennessee, is owned by B Steel 
& Company, and managed by John McDaniel and A. Bingham, 
was built in 1840, has 4 knobling fires and 1 hammer driven by 
water, and made in 1857 410 tons of blooms out of pig metal. 

481. Valley Forge, one and a half miles from the right 
bank of the Cumberland river, six miles southeast of Cross¬ 
creek Furnace, K. 571, is owned by Jordan, Brother & Com¬ 
pany, Clarksville P.O. Montgomery county Tennessee, was built 
in 1852, has 1 lorge and 7 knobling fires with 1 hammer driven 
by steam, and made in 1857 1,050 gross tons of blooms out of 
pig iron. 

482. Blooming-Grove Forge, on Bloom creek, two miles 
from the right bank of the Cumberland river, and three miles 
northeast of Yalley Forge last described, is owned by S. R. 
Cook & Company, New York P.O. Montgomery county Ten¬ 
nessee, is very old, has 1 forge and 6 knobling fires with 1 ham¬ 
mer driven by steam, and made in 1857 1,009 gross tons of 
blooms out of pig metal. It is about to be abandoned. 

483. Water Forge, on Barton’s creek in Montgomery county 
Tennessee, four miles northwest of Henry Clay 1 orge next de¬ 
scribed, and owned by Jackson, McKiernan and Company, was 

1 


216 


TABLE I.-FORGES IN TENNESSEE. 


built in 1808, lias 1 forge and 5 knobling fires with. 2 hammers, 
driven by water and lias done very little since 1853. 

484. Henry Clay Forge, one mile back from the left bank 
of the Cumberland river, twenty miles south of Clarksville, 
and owned and managed by Theodore Hicks Baxter, Barton’s 
Creek P.O. Dickson county Tennessee, was built about 1837, 
has 1 forge and 7 knobling fires with 1 hammer driven by 
steam, and made in five months of 1856 600 tons of blooms 
from pig metal. 

485. Patterson Forge, is situated at a remarkable bend in 
the Harpeth river (a branch of the Cumberland from the south¬ 
west), where, after seven miles of current, it returns to within 
two hundred feet of its bed. This point is by road twelve 
miles from the mouth of the Harpeth in the Cumberland, but 
twenty-three miles by water. It is owned by James L. Bell 
and managed by A. W. Turner, Chestnut Grove P.O. Cheatham 
county Tennessee, has 1 forge and 8 knobling fires with 3 ham¬ 
mers driven by water, and makes Cincinnati blooms out of 
Worley Furnace pig metal (K. 593.) 

436. Turnbull Forge, on Turnbull creek eighteen miles east of Worley and six 
miles east of Jackson Furnaces, twenty-five miles west of Nashville, was built 
1815 by Richard, and rebuilt 1847 by Elias Napier, stopped in 1855 and will 
never run again. It is owned by William C. Napier, Charlotte P.O. Dickson 
county Tennessee, had 1 forge and 4 knobling fires with two hammers driven by 
water, and made in 1855 210 tons of blooms out of Cumberland Furnace pig metal. 
K. 590. 

487. White Bluff Forge, on Turnbull creek, five miles above the last, two 
miles east of Jackson Furnace, fourteen miles south of Charlotte, and twenty-nine 
miles south of Nashville, is owned by Kurr & Hutchison, and managed by John 
Hall, Charlotte P.O. Dickson county Tennessee, was built in 1828, has 1 forge and 
6 knobling fires with 2 hammers driven by water, and made in 1855 173 tons of 
blooms and bars out of Piney Furnace pig metal K. 594. It is now aban¬ 
doned. 

488. Hurricane Forge, on Hurricane creek, five miles north of Duck river and 
nine miles southeast of Waverly in Humphreys county Tennessee, is owned by 
George Hillman of the Empire Iron Works in Lyon county Kentucky, was built in 
1839, had 1 forge and 4 knobling fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and made 
bars until it was abandoned, some time before 1854. 

489. Big Creek Bloomary, six miles south of West Smith- 
ville T. 16, E. 4, Lawrence county Arkansas, owned by Alfred 
Bevens & Company, Calamine P.O. was built in 1857 with 2 
fires and 1 hammer driven by water, and makes 250 lbs. of 

I 


BLOOMARIES IN MISSOURI AND MICHIGAN. 


217 


swedged iron per day with cold blast, out of brown hematite 
ore. 

490. Valle Forge, on Wolf creek three miles east of Farm¬ 
ington on the plank road from Iron Mountain to St. Genevieve, 
seventeen miles north of east from the Iron Mountain, is owned 
by Prewitt & Patterson and managed by John Patterson, Far¬ 
mington P.O. St. Francis county Missouri, was built in 1852, 
has 9 bloomary and 9 knobling or refinery fires with 2 hammers 
driven by steam, and makes boiler slabs out of magnetic 
ore. 

491. Pilot Knob Forge, near the Furnaces K. 606, owned by the same Com¬ 
pany and managed by J. B. Bailey, Pilot Knob P.O. Iron county Missouri, was 
built in 1849 with 8 bloomary and 2 knobling fires and 2 hammers driven by 
steam. It stopped in 1855 and will probably never run again. 

492. Maramec Forges, on the Spring branch of the Mara- 

mec river at the Furnace K. 612, is leased and managed by 
William James, Maramec P.O. Crawford county Missouri, was 
built in 1847, has 6 knobling fires and 3 hammers driven by 
water, and made in 1857 821 tons of blooms and 198 of 
bars. * 

493. Collins Iron Works, three miles west-northwest of 
Marquette, Marquette county Michigan, on Lake Superior, in T. 
48 north, R. 25 west, sec. 9 on Dead river, in the village of 
Collinsville; is owned by the Collins Iron Company, C. A. 
Trowbridge Treasurer and Secretary, Detroit, Michigan; was 
built in 1855, has 8 bloomary fires and 2 hammers driven by 
water, and makes about 450 tons of blooms per annum out of 
Lake Superior magnetic ore. 

494. Forest Iron Works, near Marquette, owned by the 
same company as the last, Peter White mortgagee, has 3 
bloomary fires and uses magnetic ore. 

495. Jackson Iron Works, near Marquette, and owned by 
the Jackson Iron Company, is not in operation. 

496. Utah. A forge is reported in Utah, smelting iron ore 
found in the mountains east of Salt Lake City, but no reliable 
information could be obtained respecting it. Those mountains 
must abound in metamorphic ores of a fine quality, as well as 
in brown hematites and bog ores. Lower Silurian rocks have 

I 


218 


TABLE I.—FORGES IN UTAH AND CALIFORNIA. 


been discovered in the Black Ilills surrounding tlie metamor- 
pliic or azoic rocks, which, in Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michi¬ 
gan, contain such an abundance of iron. The coal measures 
appear near Fort Laramie and elsewhere, probably with their 
iron ores. 

497. California. One or more forges are spoken of on the 
west coast, but nothing is known of them. The ores are those 
of metamorphic rocks of old but doubtful age. 




* 


* 


TABLES D. G. J. 


ROLLING MILLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

1. Pembroke Rolling Mill, situated in Pembroke, Wash 
ington county Maine, eleven miles west of Eastport, William E. 
Coffin, of Boston, treasurer; Lewis L. Wadsworth, superintend¬ 
ent, has 20 furnaces in all, 4 trains of rolls, 27 nail, 1 spike and 
2 rivet machines driven by water, and made in 1856 about 
4,500 tons of bar iron, nails, spikes and rivets. 

2. Danvers Rolling Mill, situated two miles northwest of 
Salem, Essex county Massachusetts, on the main road to Dan¬ 
vers Keck and village, and owned and managed by C. A. Smith, 
is perhaps fifty years old, was enlarged in 1831, has 4 heating 
furnaces and 2 trains of rolls driven by steam, and makes up 
Swedish iron and old rails into shapes and rods. It ceased mak- * 
ing nails about 1850. 

3. Glendon Rolling Mill, situated at East Boston, Norfolk county Massachu¬ 
setts, was a large and new establishment of the first class, and manufactured in ten 
months of 1854 7,649j tons of rails. The machinery has been sold off and the 
works abandoned. 

4. Bay State Rolling Mill, situated on the shore of South 
Boston, east of the Blind Asylum, Suffolk county Massachusetts, 
owned by the Bay State Iron Company, and managed by Ralph 
Croker of South Boston, was built in 1847 and remains un¬ 
changed, having 12 double puddling furnaces, 12 heating fur¬ 
naces and 4 trains of rolls driven by steam and a new steam 
hammer, and made in 1856 17,872 tons of rails, out of Port 
Henry pig iron and old rails. 

5. Norway Iron Works, in South Boston, Suffolk county 
Massachusetts, lately owned by the Horway Iron Company, 
managed by Mr. Gogan, has 4 heating furnaces and 1 train ol 
rolls, driven by steam, and makes about 2,500 tons of rod iron 
per annum. 

Table D 


220 


TABLE D.—EOLLING MILLS IN NEW ENGLAND. 


6 . Weymouth Rolling Mill, four works in one, situated in 
East Weymouth, Norfolk county Massachusetts, owned by the 
Weymouth Iron Company, Nahum Stetson treasurer and agent, 

r Bridgewater Massachusetts, was built in 1836. No. 1 stands on 
the issue of Whitman’s pond to Back river; Nos. 2 and 3 on 
Back river, on each side of the South Shore railroad at some 
distance from it; and No. 4 in Wingham, Plymouth county, 
just across the line. The nail factory at the wharf, No. 3, was 
erected in 1841. The works have 21 furnaces in all, and 89 
nail machines, driven by water power, besides 3 forge fires and 
3 hammers (forging a hundred tons of iron a year), and made in 
1856 4,100 tons of nails, out of pig iron, castings and scrap. 

7. East Bridgewater Rolling Mill, situated a quarter of 
a mile w T est of Abingdon and Bridgewater Cross Branch rail¬ 
road (which joins the Old Colony and Fall River railroads) at 
the depot, 3 miles north of Bridgewater Junction, Plymouth 
county Massachusetts, and owned by Philips & Sheldon, 269 
Commercial street Boston, were built about 1836, have 6 fur¬ 
naces, 2 trains, 32 nail machines, 2 forge fires and 1 hammer, 
driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 1,400 tons of nails 
and tack plate iron. 

8. Bridgewater Rolling Mill, situated on the Abingdon 
and Bridgewater Cross Branch railroad, one mile from Bridge- 
water village, Plymouth county Massachusetts, owned by Lazell, 
Perkins & Company, Nahum Stetson agent, was built about 
1785, has 14 furnaces in all, 3 trains of rolls, 44 nail machines, 
9 fires and 5 hammers (one a three-ton Nasmyth) in the forge, 
driven by steam and water, and makes perhaps 2,000 tons of 
nails, machinery forging, etc. per annum. 

9. Russell & Co.’s Rolling Mill, situated in Plymouth, on 
the stream from Billington’s Sea, Plymouth county Massa¬ 
chusetts, owned by Nathaniel Bussell & Company, and managed 
by N. Bussell, was built in 1807. The Plymouth Mills Co. 
Bivet Mill situated on the same water a quarter of a mile higher 
up, was built in 1845, and draws its rivet rods cold, making 
about 225 tons of rivets per annum; Mr. Bussell, Jr. is agent, 
has 5 furnaces in all, 3 trains, 23 nail machines and a four-ton 
trip hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 400 tons of 
D 


ROLLING MILLS IN NEW ENGLAND. 


221 


nails. Seven years ago the same company owned the Eel River 
Nail Works (four miles south, now a Duck factory) also, and 
made in both 30,000 casks of nails. 

10. Tremont Bolling Mill, situated at the junction of the 
Cape Cod railroad and its branch to New Bedford, five miles 
north of Wareham and forty-six miles from Boston, in Plymouth 
county Massachusetts, is owned by the Tremont Iron Company, 
Andrew S. Nye, superintendent. An old nail factory stood 
here. The present company raised the dam to 25 feet and re¬ 
erected the works in 1843. It has 23 furnaces in all, 3 trains of 
rolls, 90 nail machines, driven by water power, and made in 
1854 4,707 tons of nails, hoops and a few shapes. It never 
made many shapes. A hoop mill is attached, which ran for a 
time but has done nothing for more than a year. 

11. Weweantit Rolling Mill, No. 1, situated one quarter 
mile west of Weweantit Depot, Cape Cod railroad, 4 miles north 
of Wareham village or “ Narrows,” and one mile south of Tre¬ 
mont junction of New Bedford Branch in Plymouth county 
Massachusetts, owned by Lewis Kenney, J. H. Hall, George 
Gibbs, J. H. Kenney, and managed by Lewis Kenney, is known 
by its old name of Toby’s Mill, was built in 1854, has 5 heating 
furnaces, 2 trains of rolls and 32 nail machines, driven by steam 
and water, and made in 1856 2,061 tons of nails out of blooms 
prepared in No. 2. 

12. We we ant it, No. 2, situated on the shore at Wareham 
Narrows, one quarter mile south of Wareham depot, was a re¬ 
vival and new location in 1854 of some very old works back of 
No. 1, and has 2 double puddling furnaces, 1 train of rolls, and 
a hammer driven by steam, and made in 1856 about 1,200 tons 
of blooms out of pig iron and some scrap. Connected with it is 
a foundry and heavy machine shop, at which Winslow squeezers, 
etc., are made. 

13. Parker Rolling Mills, situated, No. 1, the Railworks, 
at the depot, one mile from Wareham ; No. 2, the rolling and 
puddling works, two miles north of the depot (where Mr. Boyd 
superintends), in Plymouth county Massachusetts, Caleb Sprague 
ao-ent. The two mills have 16 furnaces in all, 3 trains and 84 


222 TABLE D.-ROLLING MILLS IN NEW ENGLAND. 

'.4 

nail machines, driven by water power, and made in 1856 330 
tons of cut nails and spikes. 

14. Agawam Rolling Mill, situated a furlong north of Aga¬ 
wam depot on the Cape Cod railroad, in Plymouth county Massa¬ 
chusetts, and owned by the Agawam Nail Company, Samuel T. 
Tisdale of New York owner and manager, was built in 1836, re¬ 
built in 1842, enlarged in 1849, at which time the Glen Polling 
Mill was added. This lies two and three-quarter miles further 
north, and was intended merely to increase the make; it has 
not been used for nearly a year. Both use the water from Half¬ 
way pond, a large natural reservoir. The mills have 15 fur¬ 
naces in all, 3 trains of rolls.and 80 nail machines, and made 
in 1854 3,600 tons of nails out of pig iron and some blooms and 
scrap. 

15. Kinsley Iron Works, in Canton, Norfolk county Massa¬ 
chusetts, at the end of the Canton branch of the Providence 
railroad eighteen miles south of Boston. There is a foundry, a 
machine shop and a forge, with six hammers attached to the 
mill. 

16. Old Colony Rolling Mill, situated part in Taunton, 
part in Raynham, on two sides of the Taunton river and New 
Bedford branch of Providence railroad, four miles southeast of 
Taunton village, in Bristol county Massachusetts, and owned by 
the Old Colony Iron Company, Crocker & Co., was built in 
1820. The present works, erected in 1844, consist of a nail 
plate rolling mill, a tack plate rolling mill, a hoop mill not in 
use, a nail factory, and a shovel factory. They contain 16 fur¬ 
naces in all, 3 trains of rolls, and 96 nail machines, driven by 
steam and water power, and made in the fiscal year of 1855-6 
106,000 kegs of nails, 6,223 dozen shovels, 1,100 tons of tack and 
shovel plate, and 195 tons of hoop iron, out of puddled pig iron, 
with some puddled scrap and foreign bar. 

17. Gosnold Rolling Mill, situated at the upper end of New 
Bedford city at the extremity of Second street, owned by the 
Gosnold Mill Company, William Philips of New Bedford trea¬ 
surer, Lemuel Kullock general superintendent, Bristol county 
Massachusetts, commenced running in 1856, has 4 furnaces and 
D 


ROLLING MILLS IN NEW ENGLAND. ^223 

3 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made 1,030 tons chiefly 
hoop iron, and 100 tons of shapes, and will make wire. 

j » 

18. Mount Hope Rolling Mill, situated five miles north 
of Fall river, in Bristol county Massachusetts, owned by Fair¬ 
banks & Field of Taunton, Job Leonard agent, was built in 
1857, has 4 furnaces, 2 trains, and 40 nail machines, and is 
driven by steam. 

19. Fall River Rolling Mill, situated in Fall Biver, at, the 
foot of the hill below the depot, in Bristol county Massachusetts, 
Bichard Borden treasurer and agent, was built in 1822, moved 
and rebuilt in 1842(?) and enlarged in 1846(?). It has 29 fur¬ 
naces in all, 5 trains }f rolls, and 102 nail machines, driven by 
steam and water, and made in 1857 7,880 tons of nails, rods, 
hoops and plates out of pig iron and more than half as much 
scrap iron. 

20. Providence Rolling Mill, situated at the corner of 
India street, the south point of the City of Providence, one 
mile from the depot on the west side of the river, O. A. Wash¬ 
burn Junior agent, Providence Bhode Island, was built in 1845 
for a rail mill by the New England Company. It made rails 
until 1848, when the Providence Iron Company was incorporat¬ 
ed and turned into a spike and nail mill. It has 20 furnaces in 
all, four trains of rolls, and 66 nail machines driven by steam, 
and made in 1856 4,300 tons of cut nails and spikes out of 
Philadelphia pig iron and half as much scrap. 

21. American Rolling Mill, opposite the Providence Boll¬ 
ing Mill last described, where the rolling and heating for this 
mill is done while it occupies itself with making the nails. It 
is owned by the American Horse Nail Company, William Tol- 
man & Co. agents, Providence, Bhode Island. It makes about 
175 tons of nails per annum. 

22. Quinsigamund Rolling Mill, situated on the Provi¬ 
dence and Worcester railroad, two miles from Worcester, and 
on Blackstone river at the forks in Worcester county Massachu¬ 
setts, and owned by the Quinsigamund Iron Company, Charles 
F. Washburne agent, was built in 1847, has 3 heating furnaces, 
3 trains of rolls and 30 blocks or frames for drawing wire cold, 
driven by steam and water, and has made 300 tons of hoop, 

D 


224 


TABLE D.—ROLLING MILLS IN NEW ENGLAND. 


250 of rod, 3 tons a day of wire or 1,000 a year, the average 
of three years past, with very little fluctuation and no loss of 
time,' out of American scrap iron mixed with a little northern 
New York bloom and a little Pennsylvania bar. 

» 

23. Cold Spring Rolling Mill, situated one and a quarter 
miles below Norwich City on the west side of the Thames river 
in New London county Connecticut, and owned by J. M. 
Huntingdon & Company, J. Mitchell superintendent, was 
built in 1842, burnt and reerected in 1846, has 3 heating fur¬ 
naces and 3 trains of rolls, is driven by water power, and made 
in thirty-eight weeks of 1856 1,143 tons of small iron out of 
scrap entirely. 

24. Ripley Rolling Mill, situated at Windsor Locks on the 
Connecticut river and canal, twelve miles above Hartford, and 
a furlong south of the railroad depot, in Hartford county Con¬ 
necticut. Philip Ripley of Hartford, owner; T. G. Nock, 
lessee; G. Nock, manager, was built in 1S47, and had three 
converting steel furnaces added in 1849 and 1851 to make 
blister and spring steel. It has 6 furnaces in all and 3 trains 
of rolls, driven by water power, and made in 1855 480 tons of 
nail rods, shoe shapes, tack plates, and various sizes of rod 
iron and corking steel principally out of Swedish iron. 

25. Birmingham Iron and Steel Works, situated opposite 
the Naugatuck railroad, Derby station, one-quarter mile west, 
across the river in New Haven county Connecticut, Mr. Wolt- 
water secretary, Mr. Hawkins superintendent, has 11 furnaces 
in all and 4 trains of rolls, driven by steam and water, with a 
machine shop, making 4 tons of axles and 4 tons of springs a 
day, and a steel convertory, making 30 tons of steel in ten 
days. In 1855 and 6, it made 819 tons axles, 677 tons springs, 
1,356 tons merchant iron, 520 tons spring steel. 

25. Stillwater Iron Works, situated on Mill river two 
miles north of the village, was originally a forge and after¬ 
wards an axe factory. Its wire mill is three miles further up 
the same stream in Fairfield county Connecticut, owned by the 
Stillwater Iron Company and managed by Mr. Wicks, was 
built in 1835, has 4 furnaces in all, and 2 trains of rolls, driven 
by steam and water, 2 steel converting fires, and 1 steel train, 
D 


ROLLING MILLS IN NEW YORK. 


,225 


and made in 1856 abont 1,100 tones of brazier and wire rods, 
out of principally borings and shavings. 

26.5. There was once a mill in Stamford village, but some years ago it was con¬ 
verted into a foundry, and last year all the flasks and machinery were sold and the 
place abandoned. 

27. Greenwich Ironworks, situated on a stream three 
miles west of Stamford village in Greenwich township, owned 
by Holden & Company, and managed by Mr. Hicks, Mi anus 
P.O. Fairfield county Connecticut, was built in 1836 and 
always has been a rolling mill and with little alteration. It 
has 6 furnaces in all and 4 trains of rolls, driven by water 
power, and made in 1856 1,440 tons of nail rods, wire rods, 
merchant iron, square spike iron and stove rods, out of chiefly 
Horway bar, mixed with Hew Jersey pig, cast-iron borings and 
a few blooms, Juniata billets and a little scrap. 

28. Fairhaven Rolling Mill, situated on the Whitehall 
and Rutland railroads, sixteen miles west of Rutland, and six 
miles west of the Castleton junction with the Rutland and 
Washington railroad, and in front of the village of Fairhaven 
in Rutland county Vermont, is owned by Israel Davey and was 
built about 1820. Here has been an old nail mill for 30 or 
35 years and a forge run by the late Mr. Davey, now by his son 
Israel Davey. The rolling mill makes nail plates, marble N saw- 
blades, horse-shoe rods and a little merchant iron out of 
the hammered bars which the bloomary forge alongside makes 
from St. Lawrence or Champlain ore. The small nail factory 
attached contains 3 furnaces, 1 five-pair train, 6 nail and 1 six- 
inch spike machine, and makes 1,000 kegs of nails a month or 
about 500 tons of nails per annum. 

29. Rensselaer Rolling Mill, situated on the south end of 
the city of Troy, between the railroad and the river, and owned 
by the Rensselaer Iron Company, John A. Griswold, Troy, 
Rensselaer county Hew York, agent, was started in 1847 and 
converted to a rail mill in 1853 with 18 furnaces in all, and 4 
trains of rolls driven by steam, and made in 1856 12,650 
tons of rails and 862 tons of merchant bar out of one-third pig 
metal and two-tliirds foreign iron. 

30. Albany Iron Works, situated near the Hudson rivei 
and Iron Works station of the Greenbusli and Troy railroad at 

15 D 


226 


TABLE D.-ROLLING MILLS IN NEW YORK. 


V 


the mouth of the Wynantskill, two miles south of Troy in 
Rensselaer county New York, and owned by Corning, Winslow 
& Company, J. II. Jackson agent, was built in several parts at 
different times, has 40 furnaces in all, 8 trains of rolls, 60 nail, 

11 spike, 2 rivet machines, and 2 hammers for railroad axles, 
and a machine for wrought-iron chairs. No. 1 is the main 
steam mill, with 7 steam-engines of 250 aggregate horse-power. 
No. 2 the star forge in the form of a Greek cross, has 2 steam- 
engines, shops, etc. No. 3, the old mill rebuilt, has water 
power, and makes steel, axles, sleigh-shoes, and crow-bars. 
The works consume 4,000 tons of Lake Champlain magnetic 
ore for puddling; employ 600 men; have 3 dams on the 
Wynantskill, and 5 wheels; produced in 1856 11,566 gross 
tons from the crude material, spikes of all sizes, railroad axles, 
railroad iron, wrought-iron chairs, carriage axles, rolled iron, 
bar and spring steel, crow-bars, boiler-rivets, cut-nails and steel 
sleigh-shoes. 

31. Burden’s Rolling Mill, situated on the Wynantskill, 
half a mile east of the Hudson, two miles south of Troy, in Rens¬ 
selaer county New York, and owned by Henry Burden, Wil¬ 
liam F. Burden agent, has 24 furnaces in all, 7 trains of rolls, 

33 nail and 1 horse bending and moulding machine, and a re¬ 
markable breast-wheel, 60 feet in diameter and 22\ feet in face, 
and made in 1856 8,700 tons of merchant bar iron, nails, etc., 
out of principally pig iron, with some bloom and scrap. 

32. Ulster Rolling Mill, situated on the west bank of the 
Hudson, at Saugerties, opposite Tivoli station, twenty-two miles 
above Rhinebeck, in Ulster county New York, owned by J. & 

L. Tuckerman, 106 Washington street New York city, and 
managed by John Simmons, was built in 1825 or 1826, and 
greatly damaged by the freshet of 1857, has 22 furnaces in all, 

5 trains of rolls, and 1 English hammer of five tons weight ' 
driven by water power, and makes perhaps 4,000 tons of mer¬ 
chant bar iron, car tyre, etc., per annum. 

33. Ramapo Iron and Steel Works, opposite Ramapo 
station, Erie railroad,-. Rockland countv New York, owned bv 
Henry L. Pierson, 24 Broadway New York city, and other heirs 
of Jeremiah G. Pearson, and leased by J. Wilson, was built 
about the beginning of this century, and has 2 single puddling 
D 


ROLLING MILLS IN NEW JERSEY 


227 


furnaces, 12 double cast-steel furnaces, 3 converting furnaces, 2 
trains of rolls and a trip hammer driven by water power, with 
2 bloomary fires built in 1850. All its iron is remade into cast- 
steel—about 150 tons in 1856. 

34. Suffern’s Rolling Mill, on the west side of the Ramapo 
• river, owned by Andrew Winter, Ramapo R.O. Rockland county 
New York, was previous to 1853 a bloomary forge, built about 
1849, has 1 puddling furnace, 2 trains of rolls and 2 hammers, 
driven by water power, and makes about 300 tons per annum 
of merchant bar out of scrap iron. 

35. Chrisman & Durben’s Rolling Mill, one and a half 
miles west of Jersey City ferry, on Prospect street, owned by 
Chrisman & Durben, Hudson county New Jersey, started early 
in 1857, with 2 heating furnaces and 1 train of rolls, driven by 
Steam, to make boiler plate for New York. 

36. Chrisman & Co. Rolling Mill, two miles southwest of 
Jersey City on Bergen Point plank road, owned by Chrisman & 
Company, Jersey City Hudson county New Jersey, was built in 
1852, has 2 heating furnaces and 1 train of rolls, driven by 
steam, and made in 1856 about 550 tons of boiler plate for 
New York and Richmond out of charcoal blooms and a little 
scrap. 

37. Charlottenburg Rolling Mill (under the same roof 
with the Forge), eleven miles north of Rockaway, owned by 
George IJ. Renton, Newark, and managed by C. F. D’Camp, 
Newfoundland P.O. Morris county New Jersey, was built in 
1840, has 2 heating furnaces and 3 trains of rolls, driven by 
water power, and made in half of 1857 174J tons of finished 
merchant iron. 

38. Pompton Rolling Mill, close by the Furnace, six miles 
east of Rockaway, Morris county New Jersey, owned by Charles 
A. Richter of Boonton and leased by Illingworth, Nimmo & 
Company, Was built in 1838 and enlarged in 1844 by Horace 
Gray. It has 10 furnaces in all, 3 trains of rolls, 3 cast-steel 
fires, and a hammer, and made in 1856 perhaps 100 tons of steel, 
and nothing else until it recommenced work in 1857. 

39. Powerville Rolling Mill, four miles east of Rockaway, 

T. C. Willis owner and manager, Boonton P.O. Morris county 

Table G- 


228 


TABLE G.—ROLLING MILLS IN NEW JERSEY. 


New Jersey, was built in 1846, has 1 heating furnace and 2 
trains of rolls, driven by water, and makes about 400 tons per 
annum of hoop and rod iron out of blooms. 

40. Rockaway Iron Works, at the east end of the village 
of Rockaway, Morris county New Jersey, and owned by the 
Rockaway Iron and Steel Works Company, Moses A. Brockfield 
and Albert A. Stanborough of Morristown assignees. There 
has been here a small mill since 1826; last rebuilt in 1855, has 
8 furnaces in all, 2 trains of rolls, 2 nail and 2 spike machines, 
and 3 hammers driven by steam and water, and made in 1855 
about 2,000 tons of railroad spikes, etc., out of half charcoal 
blooms and half anthracite pig metal. 

41. Boonton Rolling Mill, nineteen miles from Newark, 
owned by Fuller, Lord & Company, New York, W. G-. Lathrop 
agent, Boonton P.O. Morris county New Jersey, was built about 
1825, has 20 furnaces in all, 3 trains of rolls and 110 nail ma¬ 
chines, driven by steam and water, and made in 42 weeks of 
1857 7,372 tons of nails and spikes out of principally pig metal, 
with a large consumption of ore and scrap. 

42. Dover Rolling Mill, two hundred yards north of the 
Morris and Essex railroad, Dover station, owned by Henry 
McFarland and managed by G. H. Hinchman, Dover, Morris 
county New Jersey, was built in 1792, rebuilt in 1819, and 
again in 1838, has 2 heating furnaces for iron and one for steel, 

6 boiler-rivet machines driven by steam in a separate building; 
a third roof covers five trunks for converting steel, holding 20 
tons each; a cupola furnace and an air furnace for casting, 
made in 1856 935 tons of steel and rivets out of Swedish and 
American iron, and has made as many as a thousand tons of 
steel in a year. 

42.5. Monroe Nail Factory and Rolling Mill, stands in ruins and has not 
been used for thirty years. 

43. Trenton Rolling Mill, on the Delaware river at South 
Trenton in Mercer county New Jersey, owned by Cooper, 
Hewitt & Company, of Burling slip New York city, was built 
in 1845, has 58 furnaces in all, and 6 trains of rolls, driven by 
steam, and made in 1856 14,000 tons of rails and wire. Here 
G 


ROLLING MILLS IN NEW JERSEY. 


229 


were made the first “ wrought-iron beams for fire-proof build¬ 
ings ” lor the United States Government. 

44. Cumberland Nail and Iron Works, at Bridgeton, 
thirty-five miles south of Philadelphia, owned by the Cumber¬ 
land Nail and Iron Company, Robert C. Nichols manager, 
Bridgeton, Cumberland county New Jersey, was built in 1815, 
rebuilt in 1824, and enlarged in 1847 and 1853, has 20 furnaces 
in all, 2 trains of rolls and 102 nail machines, is driven by steam 
and water, and made in 1856 4,265 tons of bars, 83,337 kegs of 
nails, and 561,542 feet of gas tube. 

45. Lehigh Rolling Mill, between the canal and the river, 
in South Easton, two miles above the mouth of the Lehigh 
river, owned by Stewart & Company and managed by John 
Stewart, South Easton, Northampton county Pennsylvania, was 
built in 1837, has 4 heating furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, driven 
by water, and made in 1856 42,680 bundles or 1,344 tons of 
wire, and in 49 weeks of 1857 1,197£ tons. 

46. Oxford Iron and Steel Works, on Frankfort creek, 
five miles from Chestnut street, in the 23d Ward of Philadel¬ 
phia, owned by W. & H. Rowland, office 61 South Second 
street Philadelphia, was built in 1855, has 4 heating furnaces, 
2 trains of rolls and 2 hammers, is driven by steam and made 
in 1857 696 tons of spring and cast-steel scrap and foreign 
iron. 

47. Kensington Rolling Mill, on Beech street above Pop¬ 
lar in Philadelphia, owned by Nat. Rowland & Company, was 
built in 1840 and rebuilt beside the Kensington Iron Works, 
has 2 heating furnaces and 1 train of rolls driven by steam, and 
made in 1855 about 1,300 tons. 

48. Kensington Iron Works, alongside of the last, but 
owned by James Rowland & Company of Philadelphia, was 
built in 1845, has 19 furnaces in all, and 4 trains of rolls, driven 
by steam. Both works are said to have made in 1856 5,000 
tons of spring, plough and shovel steel. 

49. Penn Rolling Mill, on North Delaware avenue above 
Poplar street in Kensington, Philadelphia, owned by J. Rob¬ 
bins, junior, & J. P. Yerree, and leased by Verree & Mitchell, 
was built in 1845, has 5 heating and 3 converting furnaces 

G 


230 TABLE G.—ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. . 

capable of converting 1,000 tons of iron to steel, and 2 blot■ Hil¬ 
aries for scrap and a hammer, driven by steam, and made in 

1856 perhaps 1,800 tons of spring steel, plough steel, bar iron, 
slit rods and blooms out of principally scrap with some Swedish. 

50. Treaty Rolling Mill, on Beech and Mulberry streets 
in Kensington, Philadelphia, owned by Leibert & vVainright, 
but leased by Marshall, Plunkett & Co., was built in 1846 for a 
rail mill but lay idle six years, and was fitted up in December, 
1856, for a sheet mill, has 5 furnaces in all, and 2 tr fins of rolls, 
driven by steam. 

51. Fairmount Rolling Mill, on Thirtieth street above 
Coates, back of the Fairmount Water Works in Philadelphia, 
owned and managed by Charles E. Smith, was built in 1846, 
between the Columbia railroad and the Schuylkill canal, has 11 
furnaces in all and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 

1857 2,378 tons of band, hoop and bar iron. Makes gas tubing, 
socket and railroad chair iron, and railway rails, out of pig iron. 

52. Fountain Green Rolling Mill, situated on the east 
bank of the Schuylkill, half a mile below the Columbia railroad 
bridge, two miles above Fairmount in Philadelphia, owned by 
Strickland Kneass, office 56 Walnut street, J. Haldeman agent, 
H. McCarty junior manager, was built in 1848, has 8 furnaces 
in all, 2 trains of rolls, 19 nail machines, a railroad spike ma¬ 
chine, a rivet machine with a heater, and a new horseshoe ma¬ 
chine, 1 guide mill, 1 cut-spike and 1 railway chair machine, 
driven by steam, and made in 1855 1,655 tons of bar and rod 
iron and nails, principally out of pig iron with some scrap. 

53. Flatrock Rolling Mill, owned by M. B. Buckley & 
Son, 56 Walnut street Philadelphia, and managed by Mr. Har- 
rigan, is situated alongside of the forge (No. 80, Table F.), 
between the east bank of the river and the canal at the upper 
end of Manayunk, above the factories, and works up its blooms. 
Built in 1820, it has 1 heating furnace and 1 train of rolls driven 
by water power, and made in 1856 600 tons of plate. This mill 
was moved to, and rebuilt at Grey’s Frrry, below Philadelphia 
in 1858. 

54. Pencoyd Rolling Mill, on the west side of the Schuyl¬ 
kill, half a mile below tne Flat Bock, in Montgomery county, is 

G 


ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 231 

owned by A. & P. Roberts, office Walnut street Philadelphia, 
was built in 1855, has 2 heating furnaces and 1 train of rolls, 
driven by steam, and made in 1857 1,382 tons of axles and bar 
iron out of scrap. 

5 5. Cheltenham Rolling Mill, on the Tacony creek, three- 
quarters of a mile above Milltown, two miles from Green Lane 
station, North Pennsylvania railroad, and one mile below 
Shoemakertown in Montgomery county Pennsylvania, owned 
by Rowland & Hunt, was built in 1790, has 2 heating furnaces 
and 1 train of rolls driven by water power, and makes perhaps 
1,000 tons of boiler plate a year. 

55.5. Schuylkill Iron Works, 12 miles from Philadelphia, 
owned by Alan Wood, L. A. Lukens, T. and A. Wood, jun., 
No. 38 N. Front street, was built in the beginning of 1858, with 
2 puddling, 1 heating and 2 grate furnaces, and 2 trains of rolls, 
driven by steam, and with a capacity of 1,500 tons of sheet and 
plate iron per annum. 

56. Conshohocken Rolling Mill, between the Schuylkill 
river and canal, thirteen miles from Philadelphia, in Mont¬ 
gomery county Pennsylvania, owned by John Wood & Brothers, 
office 159 North Second street Philadelphia, was built in 1832, 
and only uses now 1 heating furnace and one train of rolls, 
driven by water pow r er, for finishing the Pennsylvania Rolling 
Mill work. 

5 7. Pennsylvania Rolling Mill, situated and owned like 
the one last described, was started in 1853, has 10 furnaces in 
all and 3 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and both together 
made in 1856 184 tons of Russia sheet, 724 tons of puddled ditto, 
100 tons of flue, and 132 tons of bloom sheet iron out of pig 
metal and some blooms. In 1857 1,230 tons. 

58. White Marsh Iron Works, near the last two, and 
owned by Wood & Lukens, Conshohocken P.O. Montgomery 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1857, has 4 furnaces and 2 
trains of rolls, driven by steam, and makes imitation Russia sheet. 

59. Norristown Rolling Mill, on the Schuylkill river 
front behind the anthracite furnace at the upper end of Norris¬ 
town, in Montgomery county Pennsylvania, is owned by Wil¬ 
liam Schall, was built in 1850, lias 20 furnaces in all and 2 

G 


232 TABLE G.—ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 

trains of rolls, driven by steam power, and made in 1857 700 
tons of boiler plate. 

60. Norristown Nail Factory, No. 2, situated near the 
last, and owned by William Scliall & P. Dewees, Norristown 
P.O. Montgomery county Pennsylvania, lias 1 spike and 28 nail 
machines, and made in 1857 1,341 tons of nails. 

61. Norristown Rolling Mill, No. 3, on the river, just 
south of the two works last described, and owned by James 
llooven, of Norristown, Montgomery county Pennsylvania, was 
built in 1846, has 11 furnaces in all, 3 trains of rolls, 13 nail 
machines and one hammer, and makes about 2,500 tons per 
year of merchant bar and plate iron and nails out of pig metal. 

62. Phoenix Rolling Mills, on the Reading railroad at the 
mouth of French creek on the Schuylkill river, owned by the 
Phoenix Iron Company, office in Franklin Building Walnut 
street above Fourth Philadelphia, and managed by John 
Griffin, Phoenixville P.O. Chester county Pennsylvania, consists 
of three mills, first erected in 1846. The w T est or rail mill, with 
36 furnaces in all, and 3 trains of rolls driven by steam, made 
in 1856 18,592 tons of railway iron. The east mill, with 21 fur¬ 
naces in all, and 2 trains of rolls driven by steam, and the 
north mill, with 17 furnaces in all, and 3 trains of rolls driven 
by steam, made together the same year 3,690 tons of bar iron, 
rods and axles, and railway chairs, and girder beams. 

65. Cheater County Rolling Mill, between the Reading railroad and the 
Schuylkill river, a hundred yards above the Phoenixville Station, Chester county 
Pennsylvania, was built in 1830 and then leased by the Workingmen’s Iron and 
Nail Company, E F. Pennepacker secretary, but the lease expiring June 3, 1854, 
the works have fallen into dilapidation. 

66. Thorndale Rolling Mill, close to the Columbia rail¬ 
road, one mile west from Gallagerville, and three miles west 
from Downingtown, Horace A. Beale owner and manager, 
Thorndale Iron Works P.O. Chester county Pennsylvania, was 
built in 1847, has 4 puddling furnaces, 2 trains of rolls, and 1 
Nasmyth hammer, is driven by steam, tmd made in 1856 800 
tons of plates. 

67. Rokeby Rolling Mill, on Buck Run and on the Penn¬ 
sylvania railroad, four miles south of Coatesville, Chester 
county Pennsylvania, owned by Abigail Fisler and managed by 

Gr 


233 


ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


fei 


J. G. Fisler, was built in 1795, uses 1 heating furnace and 1 
train of rolls, driven by water power, and made in 39 weeks of 
1856 360 tons of boiler plate out of blooms. 

68. Brandywine Rolling Mill, at Coatesville, Chester 
county Pennsylvania, owned by the heirs of R. W. Lukens,.and 
built in 1810, has 2 heating furnaces and 1 train of rolls, driven 
by water power, and made in 1856 789 tons of boiler plate iron. 

69. West Brandywine Rolling Mill, at Wagontown, forty 
miles west of Philadelphia on the West Branch Brandywine 
creek, two and a half miles north of Coatesville, Chester county 
Pennsylvania, owned by Samuel Hatfield and managed by 
Benjamin R. Hatfield Wagontown P.O., was built in 1840 and 
enlarged in 1843, has 4 and uses 2 heating furnaces and 2 trains 
of rolls, driven by water power, and made in 1856 1,065 tons 
of boiler plate iron out of blooms made at the Juniata Iron 
Works, G. 108, with which these works are connected. 

70. Laurel Rolling Mill, at the mouth of Buck Run, four 
and a half miles south of Coatesville, Chester county Pennsylva¬ 
nia, and owned and managed by Hugh E. Steele, was built in 
1825 and rebuilt in 1356, after a long lease to James Penrose. 
In 1855 had 2 and used 1 heating furnace and 1 train of rolls, 
driven by water power, and made perhaps 750 tons of boiler 
plate. 

71. Viaduct Rolling Mill, a furlong from Midway Station, 
under the Coatesville viaduct, where the Columbia railroad 
crosses Brandywine creek, consists of two mills owned by Steele 
& Worth, Coatesville P.O. Chester county Pennsylvania, one 
built in 1838, the other changed from water to steam in 1855, 
uses 2 heating furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam 
and water, and has a hammer also, and made in 1856 1,170 tons 
of boiler plate out of blooms. 

72. Valley (formerly Cain) Iron Works, on the West 
Brandywine creek, a mile northeast of Coatesville, Chester 
county Pennsylvania, is owned and managed by C. E. Pennock 
& Company, was built in 1837, remodelled and enlarged in 1854 
and 1857, has 2 heating furnaces and 1 train of rolls, driven by 
water power, and made in 1856 about 900 tons of boiler plates 
out of blooms, 


G* 


234 TAELE G.-ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 

73. Hibernia Rolling Mill, four miles north of Coa esville, 
tlie Hibernia Forge, one mile from Wagontown, in Chester 
county Pennsylvania, owned by Charles Brooke, and leased by 
Brooke & Brother, Wagontown P.O., was built between 1833 
and 1840, uses 1 of its 2 heating furnaces, has 1 train of rolls, 
driven by water power, and made in half of 1855 220 tons of 
boiler plate out of blooms and a little scrap. 

74. Pleasant Garden (formerly Chester Co.) Iron 
Works, owned by D. McConkey, of Westchester, and managed 
by J. Scott, Hew London Cross Hoads P.O. Chester county 
Pennsylvania, was built in 1845, and is said to have made pre¬ 
viously to 1856, with 2 heating furnaces and 1 train of rolls, 
driven by water power, 350 tons of boiler plate per annum. 
The forge beside it is in ruins. 

75. Pinegrove Rolling Mill, in Lower Oxford Township, 
on the Chester county side of Octoraro creek, opposite the forge, 
and sixteen miles southwest of the Penningtonville Columbia 
railroad station, is owned and managed by Enos Pennock, 
Oakhill P.O. Lancaster county Pennsylvania, was built in 1844, 
has 1 heating furnace and 1 train of rolls, driven by water, and 
has made about 250 tons of boiler plate per annum. 

76. Pottsgrove Rolling Mill, upon the Reading railroad, 
near the Schuylkill river bank, at the lower end of Pottstown, 
in Montgomery county Pennsylvania, is owned and managed 
by Potts & Bailey, was built in 1846, has 6 furnaces in all, uses 
1 of its 2 trains of rolls, is driven by steam power, and made in 
1854 1,400.tons of boiler plate out of charcoal slabs and a little 
anthracite pig iron and scrap. 

77. Pine Rolling Mill, on Manatawny creek, in Berks 
county, two and a half miles northeast of Douglassville Reading 
railroad station, is leased and managed by Joseph Bailey & 
Sons, Pottstown, Montgomery county Pennsylvania, was built 
in 1845, uses 1 of its 2 heating furnaces, and made in 1856 972 
tons of boiler plate out of blooms. 

78. Birdsborough Rolling Mill and Nail Works, situated, 
with Keystone Furnace, on Hay creek near its junction with 
the Schuylkill river, nine miles below Reading, and owned and 
managed by E. & G-. Brooke, Birdsborough P.O. Berks county 

G 


ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


235 


Pennsylvania, were built in 1848, have 8 furnaces in all, 2 trains 
of rolls, and nail machines, driven by steam and water, and 
made in 1856 39,957 kegs of nails. Hampton Purnace is two 
miles up the creek, and belongs to the same parties. Four 
miles above is Seidel & Switzer’s forge, and a mile further up 
are H. Seifert’s forges and boiler plate mill. 

79. Gibraltar Rolling Mill, on Alleghany creek, half a 
mile from its mouth, and just above Thompson’s and Franklin 
Forges, Nos. 98, 99, 100, Table F. five miles south of Reading, 
and owned and managed by II. A. & S. Seyfert, Reading, Berks 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1846, has 2 and uses 1 heat¬ 
ing furnace, and 1 train of rolls, driven by water power, and 
made in 1856 650 tons of boiler plate out of blooms. 

80. Reading Rolling Mill, on Seventh street, at the south 
end of Reading, in Berks county Pennsylvania, owned by Sey¬ 
fert, McManus & Company, was built in 1836, has 12 puddling 
and uses 5 of its 9 heating furnaces, 3 trains of rolls, 33 nail, 2 
spike and 2 rivet machines, driven by steam power, and made 
in 1856 2,843 tons of bundled and bar iron, and 1,770 of nails, 
spikes and rivets out of pig metal with some blooms and 
scrap. 

81. Neversink (Bertolet’s) Iron Works, in Reading, 
Berks county Pennsylvania, a hundred yards above the Harris¬ 
burg turnpike bridge across the Schuylkill river, is owned and 
managed by M. A. & S. Bertolet & Company, was built in 1845, 
has 7 furnaces in all, 2 trains of rolls, and a Kirk hammer, is 
driven by steam power, and has made about 2,000 tons of mer¬ 
chant bar and plate iron per year out of two-thirds pig metal 
and one-third scrap. 

82. Mcllvaine’s Rolling Mill, in Reading, Berks county 
Pennsylvania, at the corner of Neversink and Eighth streets, 
was erected in 1857 by William M. McBvaine, has 2 heating 
furnaces, 1 train of rolls, and 1 Nasmyth two-ton hammer, and is 
intended chiefly for locomotive iron, having a capacity of 1,000 
and expected to make 800 tons per year. 

83. Keystone Rolling Mill, in Reading, Berks county 
Pennsylvania, on Pine street between Second and Third, is 
owned and managed by Snell, Mullen, Banford & McCarty, has 

G 


236 TABLE G.—ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 

9 furnaces in all, and a train of rolls brought from the dis- 
mantled Glendon Rolling Mill at East Boston, D. No. 3, driven 
by steam power, and intended to make heavy shafting, bridge 
bolt and locomotive iron. Previous to 1857 it was simply a 
forge (see Table F. No. 96). 

84. Franklin Rolling Mill, on the Little Schuylkill, above Port Clinton, in 
Schuylkill county Pennsylvania, was built in 1849, owned by John Rausch, of Port 
Clinton, and destroyed by a flood in 1854. It only made 50 tons of bar iron in 
1849. 

85. Pottsville Rolling Mill, in Pottsville, Schuylkill 
county Pennsylvania, at the bend of the Schuylkill river, the 
end of the Reading railroad, and the southern limit of the 
anthracite coal field, is owned and managed by John Burnish 
& Company, was built in 1852 for merchant bar, but now has 
17 furnaces in all, and 2 trains of rail rolls, driven by steam 
power, and made in 1856 3,021 tons of T fails of every size. 

86. Palo Alto Rolling Mill, in Pottsville, Schuylkill 
county Pennsylvania, is owned by Haywood, Lee & Company, 
was built in 1855 and enlarged in 1857, has 9 furnaces in all, 
and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 1856 about 
2,500 tons of railway and merchant iron and axles out of pig 
metal. 

87. Weissport Rolling Mill, in Weissport, Lehigh county 
Pennsylvania, on the Lehigh river, was added to the Forge F. 
No. 149 in 1854 by Weiss & Wentz, with 2 puddling, and 1 
heating furnace and 1 train of rolls, driven by steam, and made 
in 1856 about 200 tons of bar iron. 

88. Lackawanna Rolling Mill, built on the north side of 
the Lackawanna creek, three hundred yards above, and on the 
same side as the furnaces (Nos. 109 to 112, Table A.), in two 
parallel buildings, at the upper end of Scranton, Luzerne county 
Pennsylvania, is owned by the Lackawanna Coal and Iron Com¬ 
pany, James H. Phinney secretary, was founded in 1844, has 
47 furnaces in all and 3 trains of rolls, driven by water power, 
and made in 1856 11,338 tons of T fail. 

88.5. Danville Rolling Mill, Montour county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, formerly owned by S. P. Case (Davis, lessee), with 3 pud¬ 
dling furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, built in 1845, and sold by 
the sheriff in 1848, has made nothing since that year. 

G 


ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


237 


89. Rough and Ready Rolling Mill, on the North Branch 
Susquehanna and canal, eleven miles east of Northumberland, 
and on the Catawissa railroad, is owned by Hancock & Foley, 
Danville, Montour county Pennsylvania, was built in 1847, has 
14 furnaces in all and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and 
made in 1856 5,259 tons of rails. 

90. Montour Rolling Mill, No. 1, situated between the 
main road down the river out of Danville and the canal at the 
lower end of town, and owned by the Montour Iron Company 
and managed by J. P. & J. Grove, Danville P.O. Montour 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1846, has 49 furnaces in all 
and 3 trains of rolls, driven by steam. 

91. Montour Rolling Mill, No. 2, was added in 1854 and 
has 33 single puddling furnaces and 1 train of rolls, driven by 
steam. Both mills together made in 1856 17,538 tons of rails. 
It is in this mill that Mr. Grove has tried puddling by ma¬ 
chinery with alleged success. 

92. Duncannon Rolling Mill, on the Susquehanna at the 
mouth of Shuman’s creek and on the Pennsylvania railroad, 
fifteen miles above Harrisburg, is owned by Fisher, Morgan & 
Company, John Wister manager, Duncannon, Perry county, 
was built in 1838, has 17 furnaces in all, 4 trains of rolls and 52 
nail machines, driven by steam and water, and made in 1857 
3,844 tons of merchant bar and nails, in 10 months. 

93. Fairview Rolling Mill, back of Fairview, two miles 
above the Harrisburg bridge, on the west side of the Susque¬ 
hanna river, is owned by J. Pratt & Son, and managed by 
Charles Wilbar, West Fairview P.O. Cumberland county Penn¬ 
sylvania, was built in 1831, rebuilt in 1847, and enlarged in 
1851, has 8 furnaces in all, 2 trains of rolls and 35 nail ma¬ 
chines, driven by water, and made in 1849 1,500 tons of nails 
chiefly. 

94. Central Rolling Mill, on the Pennsylvania railroad at 
the upper end of Harrisburg, Dauphin county Pennsylvania, 
owned and managed by Charles L. Bailey & Brothers, was built 
in 1853, has 4 furnaces in all and 1 train of rolls, driven by 
steam, and made in 1857 1,411 tons of boiler plate, out of 
blooms. 


G 


238 TABLE G.-BOLLING MILLS IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA, 

95. Harrisburg Rolling Mill, between the railroad and the 
canal, a quarter mile below the railway station in Harrisburg, 
Dauphin county Pennsylvania, is owned by J. Pratt & Son of 
Hortli Middlebury Connecticut, was built in 1836 burnt in 1851 
and rebuilt and is disused since 1853; has 2 heating furnaces, 
1 train of rolls and 12 nail machines driven by steam, and used 
to make 18 tons a week of finished bar and 5 a day of nail 
iron. 

96. Columbia Rolling Mill, half a mile northwest of the 
raibway station, owned by Smith & Bruner, and managed by 
James A. Richards, Columbia, Lancaster county Pennsylvania, 
was built in 1854, has 7 furnaces in all, and 2 trains of rolls, 
driven by steam, and made in thirty-four weeks of 1856 1,066 
tons of merchant bar and rod. 

97. Safe Harbor Rolling Mill, situated on the Conestoga 
Slackwater Navigation, near the Susquehanna river, ten miles 
southwest of Lancaster, owned by Reeves, Abbott & Company, 
and managed by Wyatt W. Miller, Safe Harbor P.O. Lancaster 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1848, has 33 furnaces in all, 
and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam and made in 1845 10,653 
tons of rails and 145 of rounds, out of pig iron and some scrap. 
A foundry is attached. 

98. Colemanville Rolling Mill, twelve miles southwest of 
Lancaster, owned by George Dawson Coleman of Lebanon, and 
managed by Maris Hoopes, Colemansville P.O. Lancaster county 
Pennsylvania, was built in 1828, has 4 heating furnaces and 2 
trains of rolls, driven by water, and makes about 1,600 tons a 
year of plate and bar iron out of pig metal. 

99. Heshbon Rolling Mill, situated on the Lycoming creek 
five miles north of Williamsport, William McKinney late owner 
and manager, Williamsport P.O. Lycoming county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, was built in 1842, has 2 puddling and 1 heating furnace 
and 1 train of rolls, driven by water power, and has made about 
300 tons of bars and rods per annum out of blooms. 

100. Crescent Rolling Mill, situated on the Lycoming 
creek, eleven miles north of Williamsport, is owned and man¬ 
aged by H. D. ILeelman & Company, Crescent P.O. Lycoming 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1842, has 2 puddling and 1 

G 


ROLLING MILLS IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 


239 


heating furnace, 1 train of rolls, 1 spike and 6 nail machines, 
and has made about 400 tons of bars and nails per annum out 
of pig and scrap. 

101. Blossburg Rolling Mill, situated on the Tioga river 
and railroad, forty miles south of Corning, Steuben county New 
York, is owned and managed by J. H. Gulick, Blossburg P.O. 
Tioga county Pennsylvania, was built in 1850, has 1 puddling 
and 1 heating furnace and 1 train of rolls, driven by steam, and 
made in 1856 322 tons of bar iron out of pig and scrap. 

102. Howard Rolling Mill and Forge, F. 170, on Lick 
run, in the gap of Bald Eagle mountain, twelve miles northeast 
of Bellefonte, is owned and managed by John Irwin junior & 
Company, Howard P.O. Centre county Pennsylvania, w T as built 
in 1840, has one train of rolls, driven by water, and made in 
1856 891 tons of merchant bar iron of all kinds. 

103. Hecla Rolling Mill, situated three-quarters of a mile 
from the Bellefonte and Lockhaven railroad, three hundred 
yards northeast from the furnace, 115, Table E. seven miles 

• east-southeast of Bellefonte, is owned and managed by Gregg, 
Irvin & Company, Hublersburg P.O. Centre county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, was built in 1846, has 3 trains of rolls, driven by steam, 
and made in 1856 283 tons of plate out of Hecla furnace pig. 

104. Milesburg Rolling Mill, on the Bald Eagle canal, 
half a mile south of Milesburg, and one and a half below Belle¬ 
fonte, is owned and managed by Irvin, McCoy & Company, 
Milesburg P.O. Centre county Pennsylvania, is 30 years old as 
a boiler plate mill, but was built in 1831 as a bar mill, and 
again rebuilt in 1849; has 2 heating furnaces, 2 trains of rolls 
and 5 nail machines, is driven by water, and has made about 
1,000 tons per annum of finished merchant bars, slit rods and a 
few nails out of rough bars from the forge F. 172, which con¬ 
tains the puddle rolls. 

• 

105. Eagle Rolling Mill, four and a half miles northeast 
of Bellefonte, is owned and managed by C. & J. Curtin, Miles¬ 
burg P.O. Centre county Pennsylvania, was built in 1831, has 
1 puddling and 1 heating furnace, 2 trains and 2 nail machines, 
driven by water, and made in 1857 851 tons of merchant bar 

G 


240 TABLE G. - ROLLING MILLS IN MIDDLE PENNSYLVANIA. 

for sliovels and scythes, and some slit rods out of Eagle furnace 
pig E. 116, and Eagle forge blooms F. 171. 

106. Bellefonte Rolling Mill, one mile southeast of Belle- 
fonte in Centre county Pennsylvania, and leased by Valentines, 
Thomas & Company, was built in 1825, uses one of its 2 pud¬ 
dling and 2 heating furnaces, has 2 pairs of rolls and 2 nail ma¬ 
chines, is driven by water, and made in 1854 1,179 tons of slit 
rods, wire, billets, shovel and scythe iron out of pig, chiefly 
blooms and a little scrap. 

107. Portage Rolling Mill, on the Alleghany Portage rail¬ 
road, two miles west of Hollidayshurg. H. H. Burroughs, J. 
Higgens & Royer & Sclimucker owners, Burroughs & Higgens 
lessees, Jos. Higgens manager, Duncansville, Blair county Penn¬ 
sylvania, was built in 1839, and its nail factory rebuilt in 1854, 
has 10 furnaces in all, 3 trains of rolls and 8 nail machines, 
driven by steam, and made in 1856 1,228 tons of assorted bars 
and 9,270 kegs of nails out of principally pig metal with some 

little bloom and scrap. 

1 * 

108. Juniata Rolling Mill, Ho 1 , on the Juniata river, one 
mile east of Alexandria in Huntingdon county Pennsylvania, 
owned and managed by S. Hatfield junior, was built in 1838, 
has 2 puddling and 2 heating furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, 
driven by water, and made in 1857 432 tons of bar and sheet 
iron out of pig. 

109. Juniata Rolling Mill, No. 2, on Shaver’s creek in Huntingdon county 
Pennsylvania, owned by the heirs of E. N. Shoenberger, was built in 1847, aban¬ 
doned and its machinery removed since 1849, when it made 100 tons of manufac¬ 
tured bar. 

110. Mont Alto Rolling Mill, one mile south of the forges 
140, 141, Table F. on the same stream with all the other works, 
Antietam creek, and nine miles southeast of Chambersburg, is 
owned and managed by Holker Hughes, Mont Alto P.O. 
Franklin county Pennsylvania, was built in 1832, has 2 ham¬ 
mers, 2 heating furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, is driven by wa¬ 
ter power, and makes in half of every year about 500 tons of 
bars and horseshoe nail rods out of blooms and scrap. The nafi 
factory was burnt down some years ago and never rebuilt. 

111. Wilmington Rolling Mill, situated nearly a mile east 
of the railway station in Wilmington, owned and managed by 

G 


241 


ROLLING MILLS IN DELAWARE. 


♦ 


Gibbons & Hilles, Wilmington P.O. Newcastle county Dela¬ 
ware, was built in 1845 and enlarged in 1850, uses one of its 2 
beating furnaces, 1 train of rolls and a Nasmyth hammer, dri¬ 
ven by steam, and made in 1856 653 tons of plate iron out of 
blooms and some little scrap. - 

112. Diamond State Rolling Mill, a quarter of a mile 
east of the railway station in Wilmington, Newcastle county 
Delaware, owned and managed by McDaniel, Craige & Com¬ 
pany, was built in 1854 and enlarged in 1857, has 4 furnaces in 
all and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 1856 838 
tons of small bar, band, scroll, oval, rivet and horseshoe iron 
from scrap and blooms. 

113. Delaware Iron Works, five miles northwest of Wil¬ 
mington in Newcastle county Delaware, half a mile off the 
Lancaster turnpike, owned by Alan Wood of Philadelphia * 
(office No. 38 North Front street), built in 1812, began to 
manufacture sheet iron about 30 vears ago in what had been 

a nailplate works. At that time only Townsend in New Jersey 
made sheet iron. It has 1 puddling and 2 heating furnaces and 
1 train of rolls, driven by water, and made in 1856 327 tons of 
artificial Russia sheet iron, the manufacture of which was dis¬ 
covered here. 

114. Marshall’s Rolling Mill, on Red Clay creek, two 
miles west of Newport, and four and a half miles northwest of 
Wilmington, owned and managed by C. & J. Marshall, New¬ 
port P.O. Newcastle county Delaware, was built in 1836, has 2 
puddling, 2 heating furnaces and 1 train of rolls, driven by water, 
and made in 1856 393 tons of sheet iron from charcoal blooms. 

115. Elk Rolling Mill, on the Big Elk river, five miles 
north of Elkton in Cecil county Maryland, where a rolling mill 
(probably copper works), existed in the time of the Revolution, 
was built about 1810 and assumed its present form about 1825 
or 1830, is owned and managed by Parke, Smith & Company, 
Elkton P.O., has 1 puddling and 2 heating furnaces and 1 train 
of rolls, driven by water, and made in 1855 about 450 tons of 
sheet iron out of pig metal and some blooms. 

116. West Amwell Iron Works, on Big Elk creek, two 
miles north of Elkton in Cecil county Maryland, is owned by 

16 ^ G* 


242 


« 




TABLE G.-ROLLING MILLS IN MARYLAND. 


E. A. Harvey of Wilmington, Delaware, and managed by 
George Harlan, was built in 1854 and enlarged in 1857, lias 1 
puddling, 4 beating furnaces and 1 train of rolls, driven by wa¬ 
ter, and made in 1856 337 tons of sheet iron. 

117. Northeast Rolling Mill, on the Wilmington and 
Baltimore railroad, one hundred yards east of the station on 
Northeast creek, owned by McCullough & Company of Wil¬ 
mington, and managed by Mr. Scott, Northeast P.O. Cecil 
county Maryland, was built, burnt down and rebuilt in 1847, 
has 1 puddling, 1 heating furnace and 1 train of rolls, driven 
by water, and made in 1856 339 tons of sheet iron out of char¬ 
coal blooms and pig. 

118. Shannon Rolling Mill, half a mile west of the Balti¬ 
more railroad station, and in sight of the railroad on Northeast 
creek in Cecil county Maryland, was built by McCullough & 
Company of Wilmington (No. 14 North Tenth street Philadel¬ 
phia), in 1857, and managed, like the last, by Mr. Scott, has 1 
heating furnace and 1 train of rolls, driven by water power, and 
makes sheet iron out of charcoal blooms. 

\ 

119. Octarara Rolling Mill, at Powlandsville (formerly 
Romansville), at the mouth of Octarara creek, live miles north 
of Point Deposit, is owned by the same parties with the last 
two, McCullough & Company, Jethro J. McCullough manager, 
Powlandsville P.O. Cecil county Maryland, is at least twenty- 
five years old; has 1 puddling, 1 heating furnace and 1 train of 
rolls, driven by water power, and made in 1856 262 tons of 
sheet iron. 

120. Joppa Nail Works, on Great Gunpowder Falls at 
head of tide fifteen miles from Baltimore, and six northwest of 
the Baltimore railway Magnolia station, is owned by Edward 
Patterson & Sons of Baltimore, and managed by S. S. Patterson 
Little Gunpowder P.O. Baltimore county Maryland, built in 
1820 and rebuilt in 1851, has 6 puddling and 1 heating furnace, 

2 trains of rolls, 37 nail machines and 1 hammer, driven by 
water, and made 34,000 kegs of nails. 

121. Baltimore Spike Mill, on the south side of Baltimore 
Harbor, Baltimore county Maryland, a quarter of a mile south 
of the Maryland Furnace, owned by J. Hopkinson Smith, has 4 

G 


ROLLING MILLS IN MARYLAND. 


243 


heating furnaces and 7 spike machines, and makes railroad 
chairs out of plate iron, and spikes out of bar. 

122. Canton Rolling Mill, No. 1, situated about a quarter 
mile above Cedar Point Furnace, and two miles from the centre 
of the city, on the Canton suburb of Baltimore, Baltimore 
county Maryland, and owned and managed by H. Abbott & 
Son, was built in 1851 and enlarged in 1854, has 10 furnaces in 
all, 3 trains of rolls and 1 hammer, driven by steam, and made 
in 1856 perhaps 2,000 tons of plate out of pig iron and some 
blooms. 

123. Canton Rolling Mill, No. 2, was added in 1857, with 
6 furnaces in all, 2 trains of. rolls and a Nasmyth hammer, is 
driven by steam, and makes plate like No. 1. 

124. Baltimore Steam Forge and Bar Iron Rolling 
Mill (see Table F. No. 124), situated near the Philadelphia rail¬ 
road station in East Baltimore, Maryland, and owned by Fagely, 
Heird & Company, was built in 1856, has 9 furnaces in all, 2 
trains of rolls, 1 three-ton Nasmyth and 1 kirk hammer, driven 
by steam, goes night and day, employs one hundred hands and 
makes refined and hammered iron, for machine, bridge and 
railway purposes. 

125. Avalon Iron Works, on the Baltimore and Ohio rail¬ 
road, half a mile above the Relay House in Baltimore county 
Maryland, owned by Joseph C. Manning & Company of Balti¬ 
more, and managed by Elijah Spurrier, is one of the oldest in 
the State, built by the Dorseys some say sixty years ago, was 
pulled down and rebuilt in 1854. The old nail factory was 
burnt down about 1845 and rebuilt in 1850. The puddling mill 
was built in 1853. It has 7 puddling and 3 heating furnaces, 3 
trains of rolls and 44 nail machines, is driven by steam and 
made in 1856 about 40,000 kegs of nails. Before 1850 it rolled 
rails. 

126. Antietam Rolling Mill, seven miles above Harper’s 

Ferry, owned and leased by Horine, Yeakle & Company, and 
managed by J. Hewitt, Sharpsburg P.O. Washington county 
Maryland, was built about 1831, separated from the forge (F. 
146) about 1845, and has not been used since 1853. It has 2 
heating furnaces, 2 trains of rolls and 25 nail machines, driven 
by water. ,v 

* ' Gr 


244 


TABLE G.—ROLLING MILLS IN VIRGINIA. 


¥ 

127. Mount Savage Rolling Mill, situated in the Frost- 
burg coal basin, eight miles west of Cumberland and close to the 
Mount Savage Blast Furnaces H. 286, 287, 288, owned by the 
Mount Savage Iron Company, Samuel Danks superintendent, 
Cumberland P.O. Alleghany county Maryland, was built in 
1839, has 27 furnaces in all and 2 trains of rolls, driven by 
steam, and made in 1855 8,350 tons of rails, out of equal quan¬ 
tities of pig iron and old rails. 

128. Tredegar Rolling Mill, near the James river bank 
in Richmond, Henrico county Virginia, owned by Morriss, 
Tanner & Company, and managed by John Hartman, has 9 
puddling, 7 heating furnaces, 3 trains of rolls, 2 rail spike and 
1 rail chair machine, driven by water power, and made in 1856 
perhaps 3,500 tons of bar iron, spikes and chairs. 

129. Armory Rolling Mill, between the Tredegar works 
last described and the river, in Richmond, Henrico county Vir¬ 
ginia, owned by R. Archer & Company, and managed by Ed¬ 
ward Wade, has 8 puddling, 3 heating furnaces and 2 trains of 
rolls, driven by water power, and made in 1856 perhaps 2,000 
tons of bars and chairs. 

130. Richmond Steel and Iron Works, situated on the 
river bank under the railroad bridge at Richmond, Henrico 
county Virginia, owned by James Hunter & Company, and 
leased and managed by James Hunter, has 1 heating furnace 
and 1 train of rolls, driven by water power, and made in 1856 
about 400 tons of merchant bar iron out of scrap and old rails. 
Has made no spikes for three years. 

131. Old Dominion Nail Works, at Richmond, Henrico 
county Virginia, H. W. Fry manufacturer, W. S. Triplett agent, 
D. Baird manager, has 7 puddling and 2 heating furnaces, 1 
train of rolls, 48 nail machines and 1 hammer, driven by water, 
and made in 1856 about 1,074 tons of nails, out of pig iron. 

132. Graham's Rolling Mill, on Reed creek, six miles 
southeast of Mac’s Meadows, Virginia and Tennessee railway 
station and twelve miles east of Wytlieville, under the same roof 
with Graham’s Forge, I. 233, is owned like that by David Gra¬ 
ham and managed by Mitchel B. Tate, Graham’s Forge P.O. 
Wythe county Virginia; was built in 1826 and again in 1856 ; 
G 


ROLLING MILLS IN NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 


245 


has 1 heating furnace, 1 train of rolls and 5 nail machines, driven 
by water power, and made in twenty-one weeks of 1856 161 
tons of merchant bars, plate iron and nails. 

133. Brigg’s Iron Works, situated on Crowder’s creek ten 
miles south from Dallas, and one and a quarter miles north of 
Kings Mountain, Gaston county North Carolina, owned and 
managed by Benjamin F. Briggs, Yorkville P.O. in South Caro¬ 
lina, was b.uilt in 1853, has 1 heating furnace and 2 trains of 
rolls and works up the forge blooms into round and square bar 
iron for home market, making about 215 tons a year. 

134. Highshoals Works, situated on South Catawba river, six miles south from 
Lincolnton, seven north from Dallas, and seven east from Columbia Furnace. Has 
been in ruins since January 1, 1854. The works belong to the Highshoals Mining 
and Manufacturing Company, office No 4 Bowling Green, New York city, T. Darling 
agent, Nail Factory P.O. Gaston county North Carolina. 

135. Hurricane Rolling Mill and Nail Works, situated 
on Pacolet river, seven miles east-northeast of Spartanburg in 
Spartanburg District of South Carolina, owned by *the South 
Carolina Manufacturing Company, Simpson Bobo agent, and 
built in 1834, has 5 furnaces in all, 1 train of rolls, 3 nail ma¬ 
chines and 1 hammer, driven by water power, and has made 
about 390 tons of merchant bar iron and nails per annum, out 
of pig metal. 

136. Cherokee Ford Works, situated on Broad river, 
twenty-six miles northeast of Spartanburg and twenty-four miles 
north-nortliwest of Yorkville, owned by the Swedish Iron Manu¬ 
facturing Company, and managed by A. M. Latham, Coopers- 
ville P.O. Union District in South Carolina, was built in 1840 
and is about abandoned; has 1 puddling and 2 heating furnaces, 
2 trains of rolls, 5 nail machines and 1 hammer, driven by water 
power, and made in 1856 400 tons of merchant bar iron and 
nails out of charcoal blooms. 

137. Cherokee Iron Works, situated on the west bank of 
the Broad river, and south bank of London Bridge creek, one 
and a half miles below the forges, and two and a half miles 
below the Swedish IronWorks, is owned by the Kings Mountain 
Iron Company, and managed by M. M. Montgomery Cherokee 
Iron Works P.O. York District South Carolina, was built about 
1825, has 1 refining and 1 heating furnace and 4 pairs of rolls, 


246 TABLE G.—ROLLING MILLS IN EASTERN TENNESSEE. 

driven by water power, and made in thirty-three weeks of 1856 
420 tons of merchant bar iron out of charcoal pig. 

138. Etowah Rolling Mill, situated on Etowah river, one 
and a half miles north of the Allatoona Furnace, four miles 
northeast of Allatoona, Cass county Georgia, owned by the 
Etowali Manufacturing Company, M. A. Cooper president, E. 
A. Hicks treasurer, and J. W. Churchill superintendent, was 
built about 1849, has 9 furnaces in all, 3 trains, 3 nail machines 
and 1 hammer, driven by water, and made in 1856 perhaps 900 
tons of merchant bar out of charcoal pig iron. 

139. Gate City Rolling Mill, in the town of Atlanta, on 
the Georgia railroad half a mile from the Atlanta railway sta¬ 
tion, owned and managed by L. A. Douglas, Atlanta P.O. Ful¬ 
ton county Georgia, was built in 1858, has 6 puddling 8 heating 
furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and has a capa¬ 
city to make 12,000 tons of railroad iron out of old rails and pig 
metal for the southern railroads. 

140. Pleasant Valley Rolling Mill, situated at Emery¬ 
ville, on Nolichucky river, one hundred and fifty yards below 
the furnace, H. 269, eight miles southeast of Washington Col¬ 
lege, and eight miles south of Jonesborough, owned by John 
Blair &,Company, Cox’s Store P.O. Washington county Tennes¬ 
see, and managed by the same, was converted from the old 
bloomary forge (1790) to a rolling mill about in 1833, has 5 re¬ 
finery fires, 2 heating furnaces, 2 pairs of rolls and 5 nail ma¬ 
chines, driven by a fine water power, and made in 1856 perhaps 
150 tons of bars and nails. 

141. Loudon Rolling Mill, on the Tennessee river at Lou¬ 
don, thirty miles southwest of Knoxville by railroad, and a hun¬ 
dred yards from the railroad station, owned by Samuel M. 
Johnson & Company, and leased by Jones, Philips & Company, 
Loudon P.O. Koane county Tennessee, was built in 1854 and 
enlarged in 1857, has 2 boiling and 1 heating furnace, and 2 
trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in a quarter of 1854 
perhaps 100 tons of bar and rod iron, and nothing since. • 

142. Reeve’s Rolling Mill, on the Watauga river, at the crossing of the road 
to Jonesborough, one mile from Elizabethton in Carter county Tennessee, and owned 
by J. I. Tipton, was built 1829-30, or earlier, and abandoned in the spring of 1852, 
had a nail factory, forge and cupola furnace, all nc« in ruins. 

G 


ROLLING MILLS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


247 


143. Gillespie’s Rolling Mill, cn Watauga river, three miles from the rail¬ 
road, and four miles below Elizabethton, in Carter county Tennessee, was begun in 
1S49 and never finished, or at least never run. It had 6 nail cutters. 

144. Cumberland Iron Works, see No. 207. Table J 

145. Cambria Iron Works, at Jolmstown, Cambria county 
Pennsylvania, seventy-six miles east of Pittsburg, on the river 
Conemaugh, between the Pennsylvania Central railway station 
and the furnaces H. 347, etc., owned by the Cambria Iron Com¬ 
pany and leased by Wood, Morrell & Company of Philadelphia, 
was built in 1854, burnt and rebuilt in 1857, in the form of 
a cross 612 feet long one way by 372 the other, has 30 puddling 
and 12 heating furnaces, and 4 trains of rolls, driven by steam, 
and made in 1857 17,808 tons of rails out of coke and charcoal 
Pig- 

146. Fairchance Rolling Mill, in Uniontown in Fayette 
county Pennsylvania, at the western base of West Laurel Hill 
or Chestnut Ridge, on the waters of George’s creek, near the 
National road, owmed by F. H. Oliphant and managed by G. 
W. Pauli, was built in 1834, has 2 puddling, 2 heating furnaces, 
3 trains of rolls and 3 nail machines, driven by steam, and made 
in 1856 perhaps 600 tons of bar iron and nails. 

147. Brownsville Rolling Mill, situated on the Mononga- 
hela river at Brownsville, Fayette county Pennsylvania, thirty- 
live miles above Pittsburg, owned last by R. Rodgers, and sold, 
dismantled and abandoned in 1853, had 8 fires in all, 3 trains 
and 10 machines, driven by steam, and made in 1849 600 tons of 
bars and nails. 

148. McKeesport Rolling Mill, situated on the south side 
of the Monongaliela, at McKeesport in Alleghany county Penn¬ 
sylvania, fifteen miles above Pittsburg, owned by Wood, More- 
head & Company, office 134 First street Pittsburg, was built 
in 1851, uses 6 heating furnaces and 4 trains of rolls driven by 
steam, and made in 1857 477 tons of bar iron, imitation Rus¬ 
sia and galvanized and corrugated sheet. 

149. American Rolling Mill, situated on the south bank 
of the Monongaliela, two miles above the bridge, and half a mile 
above Birmingham ferry wharf, owned by Jones, Lautli & Com¬ 
pany, 98 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany county Pennsyl- 

Table J 


248 TABLE J.-BOLLING MILLS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 

vania, was "built in 1853, witli 31 furnaces in all, 5 trains of 
rolls and 25 nail machines, driven by steam, and made in 1857 
about 6,000 tons of merchant bar iron and nails, out of pig iron 
and a little scrap. 

150. Western Tack Factory, situated in Birmingham on 
the south bank of the Monongaliela, half a mile below the Ame¬ 
rican rolling mill and half a mile above Birmingham ferry, is 
the only tack factory in the west, and none east of it nearer than 
Rhode Island, and one in the upper part of the State of New 
York. It is owned by Chess, Wilson & Company and managed 
by David Chess, 119 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany county 
Pennsylvania, was added in 1854 to an older mill built about 
1845, has 9 furnaces in all, two trains of rolls and 80 nail and 
tack machines, driven by steam, and made in 1857 about 1,400 
tons of nails and tacks of over three hundred sorts. 

151. Heela (formerly Birmingham) Rolling Mill, situ¬ 
ated in Birmingham, on the south side of the Monongaliela, a 
furlong above the Birmingham ferry, owned by J. & W. Mc- 
Knight, Mr. McCutcheon clerk, 111 Water street Pittsburg, 
Alleghany county Pennsylvania, was built in 1841, has 13 pud¬ 
dling and 6 heating furnaces, 3 trains and 20 nail machines, 
driven by steam, and made in 1856 about 4,000 tons of bars, 
rods and nails, out of pig metal. 

152. A New Mill, situated in Birmingham, on the south 
side of the Monongaliela, just below the Birmingham ferry, 
owned and managed by Porter, Rolpli & Swett, office in Pitts¬ 
burg, Alleghany county Pennsylvania, was built in 1857, with 
3 puddling and 2 heating furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, driven 
by steam, and makes bars for the spike factory situated near the 
Duquesne rolling mill 165, in Pittsburg. 

153. Sligo Rolling Mill, situated on the south side of the 
Monongaliela, just below the bridge, Pittsburg, owned by Lyon, 
Sliorb & Company, and managed by F. Wernet, office 121 First 
street Pittsburg, Alleghany county Pennsylvania, built in 
1S25, has 24 furnaces in all, and 5 trains of rolls, driven by 
steam, and made in 1857 5,454 tons of bar, plate and sheet iron, 
out of Juniata river and Clarion county charcoal iron. 

154. Clinton Rolling Mill, situated on the south side of 

J 


ROLLING MILLS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


249 


tlie Monongaliela, a furlong below the bridge, owned by Graff, 
Burnet & Company, 97 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany 
county Pennsylvania, and managed by Mr. Marshall, was built 
in 1845, has 28 furnaces in all, 5 trains and 21 nail machines, 
driven by steam, and made in 1857 perhaps 5,000 tons of bars 
and plates and nails, out of mixed coke and charcoal pig iron. 

155. Pittsburg Rolling Mill, situated in South Pittsburg, 
on the south side of the Monongaliela, a quarter mile below the 
bridge, owned by Zug & Painter, 96 Water street Pittsburg, 
Alleghany county Pennsylvania, was built in 1837, has 30 fur¬ 
naces in all, and 6 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 
1856 7,085 tons of bar, rod and sheet iron, out of pig iron with 
Lake Superior ore and some Juniata blooms. The nails are 
made at the Sable Iron Works in Pittsburg. 

155. Sheffield Rolling Mill (or Forge), situated in South 
Pittsburg, on the south side of the Monongaliela, three-quarters 
of a mile below the bridge, owned by Singer, Hartman & Com¬ 
pany, 82 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany county Pennsyl¬ 
vania, was built in 1848, has 4 puddling, 9 heating and 5 con¬ 
verting furnaces, 3 trains of rolls, 6 forge fires and 2 hammers, 
driven by steam, and made in 1856 perhaps 3,600 tons of vices, 
axles, spring steel and puddled iron. 

157. Eagle Rolling Mills, in the borough of West Pitts¬ 
burg, on the left bank of the Ohio river, at the mouth of Sawmill 
Run, one mile below the Monongaliela bridge, owned by James 
Wood, Robert B. Sterling, James O. H. Sealley, James I. Wood 
and Charles A. Wood, 113 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany 
county Pennsylvania, and managed by G. Wittengill, was built 
in 1850, has 31 furnaces in all, 7 trains of rolls and 38 nail and 
spike machines, driven by steam, and made in 1856 about 8,000 
tons of nails and spikes, bar and steel iron and plough steel, out 
of charcoal pig and some blooms and 1,000 tons of scrap. 

158. Pennsylvania Forge Rolling Mill, situated on the 
north side of the Monongaliela, a mile above the bridge, owned 
by Everson, Preston & Company, 94 Water street Pittsburg, 
Alleghany county Pennsylvania, was built in 1844, has about 
20 furnaces in all, 2 trains of rolls and 2 hammers, one a Nas- 

J 


250 TABLE J.—ROLLING- MILLS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 




myth, driven by steam, and made in 1856 perhaps 3,000 tons of 
merchant bar and forge shapes. 

159. Kensington Rolling Mill, situated on the north side 
of the Monongahela, at Pipetown, a quarter mile below the last, 
between the street and the river, and half a mile above the 
bridge, is owned by Miller, Lloyd & Black, 99 Water street, 
Pittsburg, Alleghany county Pennsylvania, and managed by 
Mr. Hickson, was built in 1845, has 12 puddling and 5 heating 
furnaces, 3 trains of rolls and 13 nail machines, driven by steam, 
and made in 1856 about 4,300 tons of bar and sheet iron and 
nails. 

160. Pittsburg Steel Works, in Pittsburg, three squares 
above the Monongahela bridge, is owned and managed by Isaac 
Jones, corner of Ross and Front streets Pittsburg, Alleghany 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1835, has 4 converting furna¬ 
ces, and makes perhaps 1,000 tons of steel. 

161. Wayne Rolling Mill, situated at the foot of Wayne 
street on the Alleghany river, built in 1829 by Mr. Oliphant, 
enlarged in 1835 by the present owners Bailey, Brown & Com¬ 
pany, 120 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany county Pennsylva¬ 
nia, and managed by J. D. Bailey, has 21 furnaces' in all, 3 
trains of rolls and 37 nail machines, driven by steam, and made 
in 1856 about 5,500 tons of bars and nails out of pig iron, with 
scrap and blooms. 

162. Sable (old Lippincott) Rolling Mill, situated at the 
foot of Walnut street on the east bank of the Alleghany river, 
owned by Zug & Painter, 96 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany 
county Pennsylvania, was established originally as a shovel fac¬ 
tory by Zeb. Packard in 1828, became a rolling mill in 1830 
and was enlarged in 1852, has 28 furnaces in all, 3 trains of 
rolls and 36 nail machines, driven by steam, and made in 1856 
about 3,500 tons of bar and hoop iron and nails. 

163. Juniata Rolling Mill, No. 1, in Alleghany city opposite to Pittsburg, 
owned by Semple, Bissell & Company, was built in 1828 and abandoned in 1849, 
disappeared and its site is occupied by a vice factory. 

164. Juniata Rolling Mill, Ho. 2, situated between Me¬ 
chanic, Pike, Adams streets and the Alleghany river in Pitts¬ 
burg, Alleghany county Pennsylvania, was established by Dr. 

J 


0 


BOLLING- MILLS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 


251 


P. Slioenberger in 1826, and is managed by Mr. Crawford & 
Brother in the mill, and Mr. Myers in the factory, office of the 
company 93 Water street. It has 32 furnaces in all, 7 trains of 
rolls and 49 nail machines, driven by steam, and made in 1855 
9,663 tons of bar and sheet iron, nails, cast-steel, etc. 

. 

165. Duquesne Rolling Mill, in Pittsburg, 312 feet on the 
Alleghany east bank and on Etna street, and 400 feet deep, was 
established in 1846 by the present owners Coleman, Heilman & 
Company, 121 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany county Penn¬ 
sylvania, William Varnum manager, has 30 furnaces in all, 5 
trains of rolls, 30 nail machines and 3 hammers, driven by 
steam, and made in 1856 about 6,800 tons of bar iron, steel and 
nails out of all kinds of pig metal, lake ore and much scrap. 

166. Lorenz Rolling Mill, situated on the west side of the 
Alleghany, opposite the Lawrenceville arsenal and ferry, three 
miles above Pittsburg, owned by Lorenz, Stewart & Company, 
62 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany county Pennsylvania, was 
built in 1856, with 20 furnaces in all, 6 trains of rolls and 21 
nail machines, driven by steam, and makes about 5,000 tons of 
bar iron and nails per annum, principally out of Anthracite, 
with some Hanging-rock pig metal, lake ore and scrap. 

167. Etna Rolling Mill, situated on Pine creek, one mile 
from its mouth on the west side of the Alleghany river, four 
miles above Pittsburg, Alleghany county Pennsylvania, owned 
by Spang & Company 91 Water street, and managed by A. G. 
Lloyd, was built in 1828, has 25 furnaces in all, 4 trains of rolls 

' and 24 nail machines, driven by steam, and made in 1855 about 
5,000 tons of bar and sheet iron and nails out of nearly all char¬ 
coal cold blast pig metal, with some anthracite, Juniata blooms 
and scrap. 

168. Vesuvius Rolling Mill, situated on the canal, west 
side of the Alleghany river, a furlong above the end of the 
Sharpsburg bridge, five miles above Pittsburg, owned by Lewis, 
Dalzell & Company, 110 Water street Pittsburg, Alleghany 
county Pennsylvania, was built in 1845, has 25 furnaces in all, 
4 trains of rolls and 37 nail machines and made in 1856 about 
6,000 tons of bar and sheet iron and nails. 


}■ 




252 TABLE J.—ROLLING MILLS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 

169. Kittanning Rolling Mill and Foundry, situated on 
the bank of the Alleghany river between it and the Alleghany 
Valley railroad, ten perches from each, forty-two miles above 
Pittsburg, owned by Colwell, Brown & J. & It. Floyd, Kittan¬ 
ning P.O. Armstrong county Pennsylvania, was built in 1848, 
has 20 furnaces in all, 3 trains and seven machines, driven by 
water, and made in 1857 2,550 tons of bar iron, nails and cast¬ 
ings. 

170. Brady’s Bend Rolling Mill, situated at Brady’s 
Bend, seventy-one miles by water and sixty miles by land 
above Pittsburg, owned by the Brady’s Bend Iron Company, 
Brady’s Bend P.O. Armstrong county Pennsylvania, H. A. S. 
D. Dudley superintendent, was built in 1841, has 35 furnaces in 
all and 5 trains of rolls, and made in 1856 7,533 tons of railroad 
iron. 

171. Franklin Rolling Mill, near the mouth of French creek, sixty-nine miles 
north of Pittsburg, sixty miles south of Erie, near Susquehanna and Waterford 
turnpike in Venango county Pennsylvania, built in 1844, had 2 furnaces and 10 
nail machines, driven by water, but has been abandoned since about 1852. 

172. Sharon Rolling Mill, on the east bank of the Che¬ 

nango, one quarter mile above the Sharon bridge, owned by the 
Sharon iron company, S. H. Kimball of Erie Pennsylvania 
president, J. Barber manager at Sharon, Lawrence county Penn¬ 
sylvania, has 11 puddling furnaces, 7 heating furnaces, 5 trains 
of rolls, 3 spike and 16 nail machines, driven by steam, and 
made in 1854 33,600 kegs of nails, besides a good deal of 
boiler iron. Ceased making iron and nails in 1855 and began 
with 4 converters and 20 melting furnaces and 1 train of rolls, 
making steel direct from Lake Superior ore by G. Hand Smith’s 
patent. tr 

173. Orizaba Rolling Mill, situated alongside of Sharon 
furnace in Newcastle, Lawrence county Pennsylvania, fifty 
miles northwest of Pittsburg, owned by McCormick’s trustees, 
managed by Mr. Besliore, built in 1847, has 23 furnaces in all, 
4 trains of rolls and 50 nail machines, driven by steam, and 
made in 1856 84,176 kegs of nails and 3,397 of spikes. 

174. Cosalo Rolling Mill, situated between the Shenango 
and Nesliannoc, on the canal at the south end of Newcastle in 
Lawrence county Pennsylvania, owned by the Crawford Bro- 

J 


BOLLING MILLS IN NORTHERN OHIO. 


253 


tliers, managed by H. J. Evans, was built in 1839 cr 1840, has 
21 furnaces in all, 4 trains of rolls and 33 nail and 2 spike ma¬ 
chines, driven by steam and water power, and made in 1849 
1,700 tons of bar iron and nails. In 1853 it made 4,000 tons of 
the Winslow split rail. 

175. Mahoning Rolling Mill, in Youngstown, Mahoning 
county Ohio, sixty-five miles northwest of Pittsburg by canal, 
and sixty-five miles southeast of Cleveland by railroad, situated 
fchree hundred yards above Phoenix furnace H. 460, owned by 
Brown, Bonnell & Company, and managed by James H. Brown, 
lias 9 puddling and 3 heating furnaces, 3 trains of rolls and 16 
nail machines, driven by steam, and made in 1856 1,875 tons 
of bar iron, spikes and nails. 

176. Faldon Rolling Mill, on the north side of Mahoning 
creek at the bridge in Nilestown, Trumbull county Ohio, 
seyenty-five miles from Pittsburg, is owned by James Ward & 
Company, was built in 1842 and enlarged in 1853, with new 
machinery and a sheet mill. It has 11 puddling and 5 heating 
furnaces, 4 trains of rolls and 15 nail machines, driven by steam, 
and made in 1857 about 2,300 tons of bar and sheet iron and 
nails. 

177. Railroad Iron Works, on the Lake Shore road, with* 
a coal branch from the Pittsburg & Cleveland road, two miles 
east of Cleveland, owned by the Railroad Iron Mill Company, 
A. G. Smith president and manager, Cleveland P.O. Cuyahoga 
county Ohio, was built in 1856, has 5 puddling and 8 heating 
furnaces and 3 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 
1857 about 6,000 tons of railroad iron. 

178. 1' ewburg Rolling Mill, three hundred yards north¬ 
east of the Newburg station, Pittsburg & Cleveland railroad, 
six miles southeast of Cleveland, owned and managed by Chil- 
lon & Jones, Newburg P.O. Cuyahoga county Ohio, was built 
in 1857, with 4 heating furnaces and 3 trains of rolls, driven by 
steam, and makes railroad iron at a present rate of about 28 
tons a day. 

179. Zanesville Rolling Mill, on the bank of the Mus¬ 
kingum river, half a mile north of the Zanesville court-house 
in Muskingum county Ohio, owned by the Ohio iron company, 

J 


254 


TABLE J.-IiOLLING MILLS OF THE OHIO KIVEK. 


Campbell, Peters & Company of Ironton Oliio, Mr. Blandy 
president, and managed by Baird & Davis, was built in 1847, 
enlarged about 1850 and rearranged in 1856 for a bar, sheet, 
nail and axle mill, with 12 furnaces in all, 2 trains of rolls, 8 
nail machines and 2 hammers, driven by steam, and makes 
about 200 tons of bars per month—in 1857 480 tons. 

180. Columbus Iron Works, on the Scioto river, east side, 
between the bridge and the prison, owned by Peter Haydn 
Columbus P.O. Franklin county Ohio, and managed by D. 
Series, was built about 1847, has 11 furnaces in all, 3 trains of 
rolls, 4 forge fires and a hammer, driven by steam, and made in 
1857 about 1,500 tons of car, hoop, rod and wire iron principally 
for the shops of the penitentiary, and telegraph companies, out 
of Missouri blooms. 

181. Jefferson Rolling Mill, situated in the lower part of 
• Steubenville, Jefferson county Ohio, seventy-three miles below 

Pittsburg on the Ohio river, and owned by Frazer, Kilgore & 
Company, all of Steubenville, and managed by F. S. Griesemer, 
was built in 1852 with 17 furnaces in all, 2 trains and 40 nail 
machines driven by steam, and made in 1857 about 2,500 tons 
of nails. 

182. Missouri (Old Wheeling) Rolling Mill, situated just 
within the northern limits of Wheeling, Ohio county Virginia, 
and owned by James M. Tod & Company 66 Main street, was 
built in 1832 and was renamed when rebuilt after the fire of 
1854. It has 14 furnaces in all, 2 trains of rolls, 1 spike and 14 
nail machines, driven by steam, and made in 1856 about 3,400 
tons of bar and plate iron and nails. It has also 4 charcoal fires 
and a hammer and made 500 tons of blooms. 

183. Crescent Rolling Mill, situated on the south side of 
Wheeling creek, and said to be the largest mill in the west, 
330 x 110 feet, is owned by the Crescent Iron Company, J. W. 
Sill president, FT. Wilkinson secretary, Wheeling P.O. Ohio 
county Virginia, has 27 furnaces in all, and 5 trains of rolls, 
driven by steam, and is capable of producing 40 tons of finished 
rails per day. 

184. Eagle Rolling Mill and Forge, on the Ohio river at 
Wheeling, in Ohio county Virginia, eighty miles below Pitts- 

J 


ROLLING MILLS OF THE OHIO RIVER 


255 


% 

burg, owned by E. C. Dewey and managed by John Hartman, 
ly*s 10 furnaces in all and 3 trains of rolls and made in 1855 
1,503 tons of merchant bar. It makes wire also, railroad axles 
arid general forging; was stopped in 1856 and has been idle 
ever since. 

185. Belmont Rolling Mill, situated in the 5th Ward at 
the south end of Wheeling, on the Ohio river and Baltimore 
and Ohio railroad, owned by Horton, Acheson & Company, and 
managed by T. D. & G. W. Horton, Wheeling Ohio county 
Virginia, is a broken parallelogram, 215 xl30, with an addition 
at the end of a nail factory 150 x 90, with 21 furnaces in all, 2 
trains of rolls and 40 Trail machines, driven by steam, and made 
in 1855 3,760 tons of cut nails. 

186. La Belle Rolling Mill, situated in “ Caldwell’s Addi¬ 
tion,” between Wheeling and South Wheeling, Ohio county 
Virginia, on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, is owned by 
Bailey, Woodward & Company, and managed by William 
Bailey, was built in 1852, has 15 puddling, 3 heating furnaces, 
2 trains of rolls and 41 nail machines, driven by steam, and 
made in 1855 3,883 tons of nails. 

187. Washington Rolling Mill, situated in South Wheel¬ 
ing, is a parallelogram, 185 feet on the Ohio river by about 100 
deep, owned by Drakely & Fenton, Wheeling Ohio county 
Virginia, and managed by D. Darragh, was a small bar mill, 
remodelled in 1S53 for a rail mill, has 14 puddling, 4 heating 
furnaces, and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 
1856 2,355 tons of railroad iron out of old rails. 

188. Virginia Rolling Mill, situated in the village of Ben- 
wood, on the Ohio river four miles below Wheeling, Ohio 
county Virginia, and owned by A. Wilson Kelly and managed 
by William Taylor, was built in 1852, has 15 puddling, 3 heat¬ 
ing furnaces, 2 trains of rolls and 43 nail machines, driven by 
steam, and makes about 3,000 tons of rails per annum. 

189. Pomeroy Rolling Mill, situated at the upper end of 
Pomeroy, Meigs county Ohio, on the Ohio river bank, was ori¬ 
ginally a foundry, and began to roll ten or eleven years ago, is 
owned by Horton, Jennings & Company, has 22 furnaces in all, 
4 trains of rolls and 1 spike machine, driven by steam, and has 


256 


TABLE J.—BOLLING MILLS OF TOE OHIO BIVEK. 


made about 3,000 tons per annum of bar and rod iron and rai 1 - 
road spikes. 

190. Ironton Rolling Mill, at the lower end of Ironton, 
Lawrence county Ohio, on the Ohio river, one hundred and 
forty-four miles above Cincinnati, owned by II. Campbell & 
Company, managed by Mr. Beason, was built in 1852, has 12 
puddling and 6 heating furnaces and 4 trains of rolls driven by 
steam, and makes perhaps 2,000 tons of bar, rod and sheet iron 
per year. 

191. Star Nail Mill, on Second street, facing the old Iron- 
ton mill last described, owned by Petei^, James & Company, 
Ironton P.O. Lawrence county Ohio, and managed by W. H. 
Powell and T. Pugh, was built in 1855 with 10 puddling and 3 
heating furnaces, 2 trains and 38 nail machines, driven by steam, 
and made in 1856 1,934 tons of nails. 

192. Lawrence Rolling Mill, in Ironton, Lawrence county 
Ohio, opposite the old rolling mill and a little above the bridge 
over Storm’s creek, a roomy building, 90 feet wide by 200 long, 
owned by James Rogers & Company and managed like the last 
by W. H. Powell, was built in 1853 (?) with 9 puddling and 3 
heating furnaces and 3 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and 
made in 1857 1,691 tons of merchant bar. 

193. Blandy Rolling Mill, in Ironton, Lawrence county 
Ohio, owned by Sturgess & Blandy, was intended to occupy all 
the remaining space of the Ironton Flat between Storm’s creek 
and the river bank; two rows of puddling furnaces have been 
erected, and the foundations of others and of a second engine 
stack, etc., have been laid. Large roofs cover half the ground, 
but the engines and roll housings have not yet been placed. 
Large shops stand on the north. 

194. Hanging Rock Rolling Mill, at Hanging Rock in 
Lawrence county, the southern point of Ohio, one hundred 
and forty miles above Cincinnati on the Ohio river, was built 
as a knobbling or slabbing forge about 1827, and made into a 
rolling mill and was rebuilt in 1854 by S. B. Hempstead and 
Serman Johnson its present owners and managers, has 10 pud¬ 
dling and 6 heating furnaces and 6 trains of rolls, driven by 
steam and made in 1855 2,850 tons of merchant bar. 

J 


4 


ROLLING MILLS OF THE OHIO RIVER. 


257 


195. Bloom Forge Iron Works, situated in Portsmouth, 
Scioto county Ohio, at the corner of Front and Washington 
streets, owned and managed by Gaylord and Company, was 
renewed in 1856, has 12 puddling and 7 heating furnaces with 
5 trains of rolls, and 2 hammers, driven by steam, and made in 
thirty-three weeks of 1856 3,565 tons of plate and bar iron. 

196. Franklin Iron Works, situated at the foot of Third 
street, at the west end of Portsmouth, Scioto county Ohio, stand 
under an immense roof, 155 x 266 feet, is owned by James Mur- 
tin & Company and managed by James Evans, w r as established 
by the Scioto Polling Mill Company in 1853, and began to run 
in 1855, with 10 puddling and 8 heating furnaces, 4 trains of 
rolls and 2 spike machines, and has made about 2,000 tons of 
merchant bar and spikes per annum. 

197. Cincinnati Iron Works, situated on the Ohio river 
bank and railroad to Columbus, at the east end of the city, 
corner of Front and Parsons streets, one mile above the steam¬ 
boat landing, is owned by Shreve, Steel & Company, was re¬ 
built in 1847, has 23 furnaces in all, 5 trains of rolls, driven by 
steam, and has made perhaps 3,000 tons of bar and sheet iron 
and rails per annum. 

198. Globe Rolling Mill, situated at the west end of the 
Cincinnati levee, a mile below the Broadway, between Mill and 
Park streets, occupies a 200 feet square, with a smaller lathe 
shop and wire factory on Front street. It is owned by Worth¬ 
ington & company Cincinnati, Hamilton county Ohio, and man¬ 
aged by James Tranter, has 7 puddling and 6 heating furnaces 
with 3 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in forty-four 
weeks of 1857 3,554 tons of plate and bar iron. 

199. McNickle Rolling Mill, situated in Covington, Ken¬ 
ton county Kentucky, on the bank of the Ohio river, opposite 
Broadway Landing, Cincinnati, and owned by J. K. McFTickle’s 
heirs, leased and managed by E. W. Stephens, was built in 1830, 
for a sheet and merchant mill, and remodelled in 1856 for re¬ 
rolling rails, has 8 puddling and 4 heating furnaces with 2 trains 
of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 1857 perhaps 5,000 tons 
of rails. 

200. Licking Rolling Mill, situated at the south end of 

17 - J 



258 


TA.BLE J.-ROLLING MILLS IN KENTUCKY. 


Covington, Kenton county Kentucky, at tlie foot of Eleventh 
street, on the west bank of the Licking river, office and depot 58 
%nd 60 East Second street, Cincinnati, owned by Philips and 
Jordan, managed by Kicliard Jordan, built in 1848, has 15 fur¬ 
naces in all and 4 trains of rolls driven by steam, and made in 
# 1856 7,082 tons of bar, plate and sheet iron. 

201. Swift’s Rolling Mill (Taylor I. Works), situated on 
the Licking river, nearly opposite the last, and a little below, at 
the south end of Newport, in Campbell county Kentucky, 
owned by Alexander Swift and Company, and managed by 
Henry Westwood, was built in 1854 and finished in 1857, has 7 
furnaces in all with 2 trains of rolls, and makes sheet and plate 
iron. 

202. Newport Rolling Mill and Forge, situated at the east 
end of Newport, Campbell county Kentucky, on the Ohio river 
south bank, opposite the Cincinnati Rolling Mill 197, is owned 
by D. Wolff, and managed by P. Breith, has 4 puddling and 8 
heating furnaces with 3 trains of rolls and 2 Nasmyth hammers, 
rolls sheet, boiler plate and small bars, and forges locomotive 
tyres. 

203. Red River Rolling Mill, situated on Red river, in 
Estill county Kentucky, thirty-eight miles east of Lexington, 
owned by Josiah A. Jackson, was built in 1838 (?) and is aban¬ 
doned this year owing to the cost of stone coal; it has 7 furnaces 
in all, 2 trains of rolls and 5 nail machines, is driven by water 
power and made in 1857 180 tons merchant bars. 

204. Louisville Rolling Mill, on Bear Grass creek, corner 
of Washington and Brook streets in Louisville, Jefferson county 
Kentucky, owned by T. C. Coleman and Company, managed 
by J. Dangerfield, built in 1851, has 6 puddling and 8 heating 
furnaces with 3 trains of rolls driven by steam, and made in 
1855 2,800 tons of bar and boiler plate. 

205. Southern Iron Works, in the town of Paducah, 
McCracken county Kentucky, at the junction of the Tennessee 
and Ohio rivers, owned by Terrell, Clark & Company, leased by 
G. W. Hope & Company, and managed by J. H. and B. Jones, 
was built in 1855 with 7 puddling and 6 heating furnaces, 3 
trains of rolls and 8 nail machines and made in 1857 1,576 tons 
of bar and sheet iron and nails. 

J 


ROLLING MILLS IN TENNESSEE AND MISSOURI. 


259 


206. Tennessee Rolling Mill, situated on tlie right bank 
of the Cumberland river, ten miles above Eddyville and two 
miles below Empire Eurnace, in Lyon county Kentucky, open¬ 
ing into the forge I. 477, is owned by Hillman, Brothers, and 
managed by G. W. Hillman, Empire Iron Works P.O. Trigg 
county Kentucky, was built in 1846, has 9 beating furnaces, 4 
trains of rolls and 8 nail machines not used, is driven by steam 

and made in 1857 3,351 tons of bar, sheet and plate iron. 

• • • 

207. Cumberland Rolling Mill, on left bank of Cumber¬ 
land river, ten miles southeast of Dover Courthouse, and thirty 
miles by river below Clarksville, is owned by Woods, Lewis & 
Company, managed by George T. Lewis, Cumberland Iron 
Works P.O. Stewart county Tennessee, was built in 1829, has 2 
puddling and 7 heating furnaces with 4 trains of rolls driven by 
steam, and made in thirty-four weeks of 1856 2,530 tons of bar, 
sheet and plate iron. 

208. Laclede formerly St. Louis Rolling Mill, situated 
on the right bank of the Mississippi river, three miles north 
from the centre of the city, owned by Chouteau, Harrison & 
Valle, and managed by William Mulligan, St. Louis P.O. St. 
Louis county Missouri, was built in 1850, burnt and rebuilt in 
1856, with 15 puddling and 10 heating furnaces, and 4 trains 
of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 1857 2,533 tons of bar, 
sheet and plate iron, out of half Iron Mountain and half West 
Tennessee pig iron and Vall6 and Maramee forge blooms. 

209. Raynor’s Rolling Mill, at the corner of Cass Avenue 
and Twelfth street in St. Louis, St. Louis county Missouri, 
owned by H. Paynor & Company, and managed by Moore 
Hardaway, was built in 1858 and contains 1 train of rolls, 1 
scrap heating furnace and 1 rivet machine, to which, in the 
course of 1858, will be added 6 puddling and 3 heating furnaces 
and 1 train of rolls. The company has an establishment on 
Main street containing 3 spike, 2 rivet and 1 railway chair 
machine, 3 heating furnaces and 3 smiths’ fires, all of which 
will be removed to the rolling mill. 

210. Missouri Rolling Mill, occupies the three sides of a 
plot of ground fronting on Main street between Carr and 
Cherry streets, St. Louis, in Missouri, is owned by McFall and 

J 



260 


TABLE J.—ROLLING MILLS OF THE NORTHWEST. 


Kelly, and managed by Michael Lynch, has 3 puddling and 2 
heating furnaces, with 2 trains of rolls, 1 spike and 1 riv&t 
machine, driven by steam, and made in thirty weeks of 1857 
about 1,320 tons of bars, spikes and rivets. Built 1854. 

211. Pacific Rolling Mill, alongside of, and in connection 
with the-Allen Bolling Mill next to be described, is situated at 
the corner of Allen and Carondelet streets St. Louis in Mis¬ 
souri, is owned by James S. Stewart & Company, and managed 
by William Perry, was built in 1856, with 5 heating furnaces, 
2 trains of rolls and 2 hammers, driven by steam, and made in 
twelve weeks of 1857 200 tons of merchant bar. 

212. Allen Iron Works, in the southern part of the city 
of St. Louis in Missouri, at the corner of Allen and Seventh 
streets, is owned by Thompson, White & Prior, and managed 
by Michael Corcoran, was built in 1855, with 8 puddling and 4 
heating furnaces, 2 trains of rolls and 43 nail machines, driven 
by steam, and made in 1857, perhaps 3,000 tons of nails and 
bar iron. 

213. Maramec, or Massey’s Rolling Mill, with a furnace (K. 611) and two 
forges, I. 492, was built in 1843, in the northwest corner of Range YI. town 37, in 
Crawford county Missouri, and abandoned after one year’s trial. 

214. Chicago Rolling Mill, on the right bank of the Chi¬ 

cago river, three miles above its mouth, and to the northwest 
and just outside the city, is just finished for the re-rolling of old 
rails; no new iron is to be used in this mill. It has 8 heating 
furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and is owned by 
E. B. Ward of Detroit, and managed by T. C. Smith, Chicago 
P.O. Cook county Illinois. * 

215. Indianapolis Rolling Mill, situated at south end of 
the city of Indianapolis, Marion county, Indiana, near the Union 
railway station, is owned by B. A. Douglas, and managed by John 
Thomas, was finished in the fall of 1857, with 6 heating furnaces 
and 2 trains of rolls, driven by steam, under a roof 140 by 220 
feet square, and can re-roll 12,000 tons of old rails per annum. 

216. Wyandotte Rolling Mill, Ho. 1 , situated on the right 
bank of Detroit river, in Wyandotte village, on the Detroit and 
Toledo railroad, ten miles south of Detroit, owned by the Wyan¬ 
dotte Bolling Mill Company, J. Holmes president, office at the 
foot of Third street in Detroit, Wayne county, Michigan, F. B. 
J 


% 


i 


ROLLING MILLS IN NEW YORK. 


261 


Ward treasurer, William A. Zabriskie secretary, and Charles 
L. Way manager, was built in 1855, and commenced in Decem¬ 
ber of same year to make merchant bars and axles, has 9 fur¬ 
naces in all, and 3 trains of rolls, driven by steam, and made in 
1856 1,698 tons. No. 2 was added in 1856. 

217. Wyandotte Rolling Mill, No. 2, situated to the 
north of and opening into Mill No. 1, is a parallelogram of 140 
by 180 feet, contains 8 heating furnaces and 2 trains of rolls, 
driven by steam, and re-rolled in 1857 8,634 tons of rails. 

218. Buffalo Iron Works, is admirably situated at the 
north end, on a point of land between the Chicktawaga creek 
and Niagara river, between the New York Central railroad and 
the canal in the eleventh ward of Buffalo city, Erie county New 
York, owned by Hodgkins & Company, Joseph Corns agent, 
was built in 1847, 140 by 170 feet square, with 8 puddling and 
3 heating furnaces, 3 trains of rolls and 24 nail machines, 
driven by steam, and made in 1857 about 3,000 tons of bars 
and nails. 

219. Richardson Iron Works, situated on the south bank 
of Owasco outlet, under the walls of the prison in Auburn, 
Cayuga county New York, owned and managed by Charles 
Richardson, was built in 1853, with 2 double heating furnaces, 

1 train of rolls and 1 large hammer, driven by steam, and made * 
in 1857 410 tons of bars and axles out of scrap iron. 

220. Jefferson Rolling Mill, situated on Black river in the 
village of Carthage, Jefferson county New York, owned and 
managed by Hiram McCollom, was built in 1847, with 1 heat¬ 
ing furnace, 1 train of rolls, 4 nail machines and a hammer, 
driven by water, and has made about 200 tons of nails and 
horseshoe bar iron in 1857 out of blooms from the forge along¬ 
side. Attached is a machine shop. 

221. Boquet Iron Works, on Boquet river, three miles due 
west of Essex village, Essex county New York, owned by the 
heirs of William D. Boss, was built in 1827, rebuilt in 1838, has 

2 heating furnaces, 1 train of rolls, 26 nail machines and 1 ham¬ 
mer, is driven by water power, and makes about 1,400 tons of 
merchant bar and nails per annum. 


J 


262 


TABLE J.—ROLLING MILLS IN NEW YORK. 


222. Sable Iron Works, at the forks of the Au-Sable river, 
Essex countv New York, eleven miles west of Port Kent on 
Lake Champlain, owned and managed by J. & J. Rogers, and 
buift about in 1834, has 4 heating furnaces and 3 trains of rolls, 
and 57 nail machines, driven by steam and water, and made in 
1857 3,090 tons of merchant bar and nails. 

223. Peru Iron Works, situated in Clintonville on the 
north bank of Au-Sable river, six miles west of Keesville, 
eleven miles west of Port Kent, owned by Saltus & Company 
of New York city, and managed by William Partridge, Clin- 
tonville P.O. Clinton county New York, is driven by water 
power, and makes bars and nails. 

224. Eagle Iron Works, in Keesville, on the north and 
south banks of Au-Sable river, consist of 2 rolling mills and a 
large machine shop, where steam engines, rolling mill ma¬ 
chinery and heavy draught iron generally, edge tools of every 
description, merchant bars, horseshoes, etc., are made. The 
works are owned by E. & J. D. Kingsland & Company, Kees¬ 
ville P.O. Clinton county New Y r ork, were built in 1815, rebuilt 
in 1849 and damaged by the freshet of October 1856, have 6 
heating furnaces, 3 trains of rolls and 40 nail machines, are 
driven by water, and have manufactured 4,500 tons per an¬ 
num. 




J 


IRON 


PART II. 

THE IRON MANUFACTURER’S GUIDE 

TO THE IRON ORES OF THE UNITED STATES. 




DIVISION I. 

IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 

Iron may be treated in three ways—chemically, geologically, 
historically ; its relationship as a metal falling into three differ¬ 
ent groups. Its chemical combinations occupy different places 
in different schemes of analysis and experiments and lie at the 
base of all knowledge in iron manufacture. Its mineralogi- 
cal combinations appealing to human senses as crystals of 
greater or less beauty and rarity or as ingredients in drugs 
and mineral waters or in common springs, interest and import 
the collector of minerals, the physician and the artisan; but 
they have very little value for the iron manufacturer. Its geo¬ 
logical combinations, on the contrary, are his guide and stay, and 
will be most discussed. Over the processes ot preparing smelt¬ 
ing and working the chemical relationships of iron are despotic, 
and no manufacturer of iron who is ignorant of them can com¬ 
mand unqualified respect from his fellow craftsmen, however 
successful his career as an empiric may have been. It is of the 
essence of quackery to deal successfully by hap-hazard with 
the unknown; but the advancement of man in art depends upon 
clear science of laws leading from the known to the unknown. 
It is impossible to classify the geological aspects and distribu¬ 
tions of iron without some reference to its chemistry; and impos- 

363 



264 


PART SECOND-DIVISION FIRST. 


sible to reason upon the former without comprehending the lat¬ 
ter. At the same time, a guide to the useful ores of iron may 
safely pass by in the most cursory way numerous mineral forms 
of iron, the description of which very properly fills the pages of 
Cleveland, Phillips, Thompson, Alger, Dana and the continental 
mineralogists of whom Karsten is the acknowledged head so 
far as iron is concerned. Karsten’s book has been the common 
treasury from which all who have written since its appearance 
have drawn their largest and most accurate information. It has 
been translated into French but never into English. In the 
present chapter it has been chiefly followed, and in many parts 
condensely translated. In mineralogy the work of Thompson 
holds a similar position; its order of the elements has been select¬ 
ed as the order to be followed in their combinations with iron. 

The place of iron in the order of the elements varies with 
the quality selected to govern the order. The order in which 
Thompson places them relates to their mutual action on each 
other as active and passive, acid and alkaline. 

The acid bases are: 


Carbon, 

Phosphorus, 

Tellurium, 

Chromium, 

Columbium, 

Boron, 

Sulphur, 

Arsenic, 

Molybdenum, 

Titanium, 

Silicon, 

Selenium, 

Antimony, 

Tungsten, 

Vanadium. 

The alkaline bases are 

• 

• 



Ammonia, 

Calcium, 

Zirconium, 

Zinc, 

Silver, 

Potassium, 

Magnesium, 

Thorium, 

Lead, 

Uranium, 

Sodium, 

Aluminium, 

Iron, 

Tin, 

Palladium, 

Lithium, 

Glucinium, 

Manganese, 

Bismuth, 


Barium, 

Y ttrium, 

Nickel, 

Copper, 


Strontium, 

Cerium, 

Cobalt, 

Mercury. 


The neutral bases are: 




Gold, 

Platinum, 

Iridium, 

Osmium. 



In this order the combinations of iron will be taken and its 
relationships classified not after a purely theoretical arrange¬ 
ment but so as to serve for a useful practical reference. 

Two-thirds of the whole material universe organic and inor¬ 
ganic is composed of oxygen, a single one of the sixty-three 
simple elements of matter as now known. By far the greatest 
part of the remaining third consists of a group of so called non- 
metallic elements, headed by hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and sili¬ 
con, to which are added sulphur, phosphorus, iodine, bromine, 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


265 


chlorine, fluorine, boron and selenium. The rest are called the 
metals, once seven in number and dedicated to the seven 
planets: gold to the Sun and silver to the Moon, mercury to 
Mercury, copper to Yenus and iron to Mars, tin to Jupiter and 
lead to Saturn the furthest from the sun and gold. 

In modern days forty-three new metals have been added to 
the list, some of which are lighter than water . 1 2 As has been 
said the place in the scale which iron takes among them must 
depend upon the particular quality in view when the scale is 
made. The following different arrangements will exhibit this; 
the column under A showing the order of specific gravity; B 
of malleability; C of ductility; and D of infusibility . 8 


Spec: gravity. 

A. 

Malleabil: 

B. 

Ductil: 

O. 

Iufusibility. 

D. 

Platinum 

20.98 




f Columbium 


Gold 

19.26 

Gold 

Gold 


Platinum 


Iridium 

18.68 




Rhodium 


Tungsten 

17.50 




Iridium 


Mercury 

13.57 




Osmium 


Palladium 

11.50 



J 

Cerium 


Lead 

11.35 




Titanium 


Silver 

10.47 

Silver 

Silver 


Chromium 


Bismuth 

9.80 

Copper 



Tungsten 


Uranium 

9.00 

Tin 3 



Uranium 


Copper 

8.89 

Cadmium 



Molybdenum 

Cadmium 

8.60 

Platinum 

Platinum 

Palladium 


Cobalt 

8.53 

Lead 


Nickel 


Nickel 

8.27 

Zinc 


Manganese 


Iron 

7.78 

Iron 

Iron 

Iron 

F 

Molybdenum 

7.40 

Nickel 

Copper 

Cast-iron 5 

27860 

Tin 

7.30 


Zinc 

Cobalt 





Tin 

Gold 

20160 




Lead 

Copper 

1996° 

Zinc 

7.00 


Nickel 4 

Silver 

1873° 

Manganese 

6.85 



Zinc 

773° 

Antimony 

6.70 



Lead 

612° 

Tellurium 

6.10 



Tellurium 

6000 

Arsenic 

5.80 



Bismuth 

4970 

Titanium 

5.30 

Palladium 

Palladium 

Tin 

4420 

Aluminium 


Potassium 

Cadmium 

Cadmium 

4420 

Sodium 

0.97 

Sodium 


Sodium 

1900 

Potassium 

0.86 

Mercury (fro- 


Potassium 

136° 



zen) 


Mercury 

—39° 

From columbium to silver infusible below a red heat. 

From columbium to 

molybdenum fusible before the oxyhydrogen blow-pipe. 



1 Several have been lately discovered, are rare and little known. 

2 A B C, from Faraday; D, from Turner. 3 Omitted by R6gnault. 

4 Placed by Rignault between iron and copper. 

6 Daniell’s scale ; buO182 0 —3294° F .—Karsten § 100. 













266 


PART SECOND-DIVISION FIRST. 


Iron is so universally disseminated that few minerals exist 
without at least a trace of it in their composition; hut none of 
these are called ores which do not contain a notable and practi¬ 
cally useful amount. It is found in combination either with 
one other element, or with two, or three or more. 

Iron has been reported found occasionally native or in a 
state of nature, like gold silver and copper. Iron-makers call 
the reduction of iron from the ore to a pure state u bringing it 
to nature,” a traditionary expression of the past, marking all 
ores alloys and compounds as unnatural and secondary pheno¬ 
mena. Cramer, Charpentier and Klaproth mention specimens 
of the pure iron found in different mines, weighing several 
pounds. A pure, bluish-white, hackly fracture, malleable iron 
has been collected in small pieces from thin veins between 
mica slate in Canaan, Connecticut, specific gravity, 5.95 to 6.72. 
With it were plates of plumbago and some native steel. Klap¬ 
roth’s specimen contained 6 per cent lead and 1.5 copper. 

Meteoric iron is iron also in a state of nature, silver white, 
granular, not easily rusted, specific gravity 7.3, and associated 
with nickel either chemically or mechanically in various propor¬ 
tions, one of which in Thompson’s list is 35 : 3.25=10 :1. 
Cobalt, tin, copper, manganese and magnetic iron pyrites often 
accompany meteoric metal, but not in fixed proportions. 

Native Iron crystallizes in regular octahedrons, with a 
cleavage parallel to the faces; its streak is iron grey, its hard¬ 
ness 4.5; it acts strongly on the magnet. Meteoric iron has often 
a broad, crystalline structure, long lines and triangular figures 
called the Widmanstatian lines being developed upon it when 
polished and washed with nitric acid. The meteoric mass from 
Texas is remarkable for the breadth of its crystallization. 
The ductility of iron is such that it may be drawn into wire 
finer than a human hair, but it cannot be beaten into very thin 
leaves. It is the most tenacious of all metals, for a wire 0.787 
of a line 6 in diameter is capable of supporting 550 pounds. 7 Iron 
is soluble in nitric acid and the solution yields a blue precipi¬ 
tate with prussiate of potassa, a black with infusion of galls. 

® The twelfth of an inch. 

7 R6gnault the following table of the comparative tenacity of different metallic wires 
2 millimetres (.079 inch) thick, to sustain :—Iron 670 lbs—Copper 367—Platinum 335— 
Silver 228—Gold 182—Zinc 134—Tin 43—Lead 34.— Chimie ii. 25. 

♦ 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


267 


Iron and Oxygen form two combina- T , _ 

tions, a protoxide and a peroxide, besides r ° n an x yS en - 
which there is a mixed proto-peroxide or magnetic oxide. 

Faraday gives 1,000 million lbs. of oxygen as the consump¬ 
tion daily of the human race in breath, and another 1,000 
in combustion and fermentation, 2,000 in animal breath, while 
4,000 million lbs. of oxygen are daily used to keep alive the 
never-ceasing functions of decay. Oxygen is the fire that burns 
up all things slowly. The whole world is therefore always on 
fire of oxygen. It pervades and works in all things, forms f 
of every animal, f of every vegetable, ^ of the mineral king¬ 
dom, | of the ocean and 1 of the atmosphere. It is watching 
all things, ready to attack them; it attacks all metals impatient 
to reduce them to an earthy form; the moment a meteor falls to 
the earth, it begins to oxidize. Were a stream of molten iron 
to issue from a volcanic chasm it would be rusted over before 
it could cool. Oxygen watches iron in the custody of other 
elements carbon phosphorus and sulphur, and sooner or later 
finds a way to steal and burn it up. Man reclaims the iron and 
restores it to its simple freedom, beautifies ennobles and envi¬ 
rons it with guards, but before his back is turned oxygen insi¬ 
nuates its fire at the weakest points, the warrior’s sword falls to 
powder in his hand and the corselet perishes like a worm-eaten 
piece of wood upon his breast. As there is four times as much 
of this subtile element in the compound we call water than 
there is in the compound we call air, the fleeting and variable 
moisture of the air accomplishes far more of this reduction of 
iron to its state of rust than dry air itself can do, and therefore 
the surface of the metal will retain its brightness longer on 
the lance of an Arab than on the anchor of an Algerine. The 
action of the oxygen-holding atmosphere upon iron in high heat 
is more energetic than at the common temperature, for heat is a 
certain motion of the particles of iron among themselves cal¬ 
culated to weaken their cohesion and therefore like animosity 
between friends calculated in an equal degree to bring them 
into attachment to surrounding objects. Perfectly dry air at a 
low temperature has no effect upon iron. Although the oxygen 
of the air colors the surface of pig metal as it runs from the 
furnace no analysis is nice enough to detect its presence ; when 
cold the colors vanish and a grey shell remains. From the 


268 


PART SECOND—DIVISION FIRST. 


moment red heat sets in up to welding and melting heats, air 
freely admitted oxidizes the surface of iron and forms forge 
scale and cinder, which however consist of a mixture of 
various degrees of oxidation. 8 

The protoxide is a union of one equivalent of oxygen and 
one equivalent of iron, that is of 8 atoms of oxygen with 28 of 
iron; its equivalent is therefore 36. It never occurs in nature 
as an ore except in combination, and then usually with carbonic 
acid. In the laboratory it is made by exposing moist iron fil¬ 
ings to the air; these do not rust red but black, and the powder 
thus formed is the protoxide, once a famous medicine called 
Mars’ Black (Martial JEthiops). Iron dissolved in weak sul¬ 
phuric acid, mixed with potash and dried under an air pump, 
rusts to protoxide in the same way. This protoxide is a black 
tasteless insoluble powder, subject to acids and obedient to the 
magnet. The salts which acids make of it let fall a white hy¬ 
drate of iron when treated with potash and ammonia, a white 
carbonate of iron when treated with the alkaline carbonates, 
and Prussian blue when treated with ferrocyanide of potassium. 
A better way to obtain it pure is that pursued by Bucholz, 
passing steam over it heated to redness in a glass tube. It melts 
at a high temperature to a porous black glittering mass more 
like an enamel than a glass. Stromeyer got it pure by reducing 
the red oxide—not quite at a red heat—(at a red heat pure 
iron would be got) by hydrogen and found it a dark blue-black, 
reflecting almost a black, flaming easily in the open air at com¬ 
mon temperatures returning to red oxide. Berzelius finds 100 
parts of iron take up 29.47 parts oxygen, which makes the prot¬ 
oxide consist of 77.23 iron +22.77 oxygen. 9 It was for a long 
time thought that the crust which red hot iron gets in free air, 
called Gliihspan by the Germans, was this protoxide, but Ber- 
thier after investigating it declared it to contain regularly 74.6 
iron +25.4 oxygen, or 2 weights of protoxide (64.2) and 1 of 
peroxide (35.8). Mosander went further and showed it to consist 
of two distinct layers, the outside one containing more (27) and 
the inside one less (24.74) oxygen, and both more and more the 
longer the heat lasts. It is evident that the thicker the crust 
the more numerous will be these layers and the greater variety 


8 Karsten, §§ 136, 137. 


9 Karsten, §§ 138, 139. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


269 


in the mixtures. The quickness or slowness - an( j Qxveen 
of the heating and its steadiness or inter¬ 
mission Tvill both affect the result. All we know is that this red- 
heat-crust is a peculiar oxide of iron not yet discovered in nature, 
and that it stands unchanged the strongest smelting heat to which 
pig metal is subjected, slagging to a porous enamel-like mass. 
But if melted in sand crucibles or in any other connection with 
sand it makes a very fluid more or less perfect glassy black ham - 
merslag (frischschlacke, refine-slag; eisenschlacke, iron-slag), 
much harder to reduce to pure iron than the red-heat-crust, al¬ 
though so much more fusible, and making with a certain amount 
of silica a very fusible black glass. If the red-heat-crust be 
worked over long at a red heat, it falls into a dark brown, 
clear brown, and finally a brownish red powder, which is the 
perfect oxide of iron, the peroxide, or as it was anciently 
called, astringent iron saffron , crocus martis adstringens. 1 

Sandstone rocks containing protoxide of iron suffer a weather¬ 
ing action at their joints where peroxide of iron results, tinting 
the rock in concentric bands. On the other hand, marls and 
sandstones reddened with peroxide become green or bluish green 
along their joints, where vegetable reagents have robbed the 
peroxide of a portion of oxygen and converted it to protoxide.* 

The Peroxide, or one and a half oxide (sesquioxide), so 
called because li of oxygen (=12 atoms) goes to 1 of iron 
(=28, making its whole equivalent 40), is the common red iron 



rust always made when iron is exposed to the air long enough 
to allow it to absorb as much oxygen as it will. It is, therefore, 
the commonest of all forms and ores of iron, and has received 
many names: anhydrous peroxide when without water; dihy- 


1 Karsten, §§ 139, 140, 141, 142. 


2 Delabeche, 1851; p. 15. 





270 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


drous and perhydrous when combined with water; red hema¬ 
tite or bloodstone, when pure; red ochre* red chalk , and red 
lenticular clay iron-stone , when mixed with clay ; red silicious 
iron-stone when mixed with sand ; iron froth 6 when floating on 
springs or dammed among mosses and ferns, or deposited from 
such conditions; iron mica when crystallized in fine plates, 
which are thin six-sided tables, transmitting a blood-red light; 
and specular or looking-glass iron ore or iron glance when crys¬ 
tallized broadly in solid masses ; the French call it fer oligiste , 
and mineralogists rhombohedral iron ore. 

When crystallized, the primary form is rhombic, 6 with a 
cleavage parallel to the primary planes and perpendicular to 
the axis in some varieties, an uneven conchoidal fracture, a 
hardness of 5.5 to 6.5 (scratched by quartz and the knife and 
scratching phosphate of lime) and a specific gravity of 5 to 5.25. 
Its lustre is steel grey often, and its surface often iridescent. It 
slightly obeys the magnet and its streak is red or reddish 
brown. This is the celebrated ore of Elba wrought by the 
Pelasgians before the founding of Rome, and splendid crystal¬ 
lizations from these mines beautify the cabinets of the world. 
It occurs in the Alps, in Scandinavia, in Saxony and Bohemia, 
Siberia and South America, in the lavas of Etna and Vesuvius, 
and of middle France, 7 and, in fact, in all parts of the world. 
The iron mountains of Missouri and Wisconsin, the plains of 
North Carolina, the shores of Lake Champlain and the High¬ 
lands of New Jersey and New England afford it in incalculable 
quantities. The micaceous or fine plate-like variety occurs at 
Hawley, Massachusetts; Piermont, New Hampshire ; and Staf¬ 
ford, Vermont. When perfectly pure this mineral substance is 
so hard as to be used for polishing and in the place of emery. 8 

When not crystallized, it is a blood-red powder, pure or 
precipitated with clay, or sand, or shells, or vegetation. In this 
form we have it in the celebrated red fossil or dyestone ore of the 
Atlantic States, Alabama, Kentucky and Wisconsin, mixed how- 

* Rothglaskopf in German, in masses, stalactites and kidney balls, brown-red, fibrous, 
radiating nearly pure peroxide, having silica 2, lime 1, water 3. 4 Reddle and Kiel. 

6 Eisenrahm in German, scaly, greasy, friable, very soft, cherry color, towards 

brown-red, containing (one specimen) silica (?) 4.25, alumina 1.25. 6 Sometimes it 

takes an octahedron, sometimes a triangular dodecahedron, truncated.— Thompson. 

7 Volcanic glance occurs in very flat crystals, often with curvilinear intersecting faces. 

—Trimmer. s Karsten, § 142. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


271 


ever with its own bulk of carbonate of lime, , an( * Oxvcen 
magnesia, clay, etc. As lenticular clay 
stone it occurs in two beds, 12 to 20 inches thick, in a compact 
sandstone in Oneida, Herkimer, Madison and Wayne counties, 
Hew York, mixed with 25 per cent carbonate of lime, and more 
or less magnesia and clay. 9 When pure it contains 70 per 
cent of iron, and 30 per cent of oxygen, or more critically, 
F. 69.34 -f- O. 30.66 ; is infusible alone before the blow-pipe; 
but with borax gives a green glass in the inner flame and 
a yellow glass in the outer. Its red powder 1 distinguishes 
its crystals from magnetic iron ore, and its hardness and infu¬ 
sibility from any silver or copper ore. Nitric acid, when mode¬ 
rately strong, poured upon iron filings, instead of dissolving 
them, throws down a red peroxide powder; but when diluted, 
it dissolves them as a per-nitrate; from which solution the al¬ 
kalies precipitate the same peroxide. 2 It remains unchanged 
at a red heat, but easily unites with silica to make slag and 
glass of a yellow color; whereas , the protoxide glasses are green , 
brown and black. Smelted with a carbonate alkali, carbonic 
acid is given off and a very unstable yellowish mixture remains, 
which falls to pure peroxide again when water is poured upon 
it. Boiled in water with powdered pure iron, hydrogen is given 
off and magnetic proto-peroxide remains (to be discussed next,) 
for all oxides of iron below the peroxide are magnetic. 

Magnus first showed how the peroxide, when heated in glass 
tubes above boiling quicksilver (400° C. — 752° F.) and hydro¬ 
gen is passed over it, yields pure iron, which when cooled and 
admitted to the free air at common temperature takes fire ; but 
if it has previously been immersed in carbonic acid gas it will 
not—at least until it has again been exposed to hydrogen; 
neither will it if the original heat has been a red heat; unless, 
again it was originally mixed with 5 to 12 per cent of alumina; 
the alumina playing a merely mechanical part in the process. 3 

When in composition with water, the red hematite or 
peroxide just described makes a hydrous peroxide , brown fibrous 
hematite iron ore, brown and yellow ochre , umber , brovm and 
yellow clay iron stone , bog ore of every variety of impurity with 


9 Dana. 

1 Whence its name, from ai/ia, haima, blood. 


2 Thompson; Dana; Penny Cyc. 

3 Karsten, § 143. 


272 


PAKT II.—DIVISION I. 


sand, mud, copperas, phosphorus, zinc, manganese and other 
minerals. Other forms of it have received the names stilpnosi- 
derite, boncrz, gothite, lepidokrokite,pyrosiderite, rubin-glimmer. 
When the composition happens to be simple, the proportion of 
water 4 * to peroxide is 14.7: 85.3 and (as the peroxide is iron) 
contains £ or 66 per cent of pure iron. 6 

Perfectly pure boiled water does not rust raw iron until it is 
heated to redness, when it instantly forms the red-heat-crust 
already described; or unless the iron be left for a long time in 
water, when a yellow envelope of liydrated-peroxide is the 
result. It even appears that pure water charged with pure air 
cannot rust iron; that, in fact, the free entrance of the atmos¬ 
phere is needful for rusting iron in water; that the cause of the 
rusting according to Marshall Hall’s experiments is the pre¬ 
sence of carbonic acid in the air, for w T ater charged with this gas 
oxidizes iron with rapidity and the visible evolution of hydro¬ 
gen. The exact temperature at which iron decomposes water 
or steam is not precisely known, but it seems to be as low as 
a brown-red heat, a fact of importance to engine builders and 
engineers. Gay-Lussac affirms that water cannot oxidize iron 
higher than 37.8 parts of oxygen to 100 iron, answering very 
nearly to the proto-peroxide proportion. With this P^gnault 
agrees. Lemery's iron-black, cethiops martialis humide (or 
frigide) factus, and cethiops martialis calide factus, is a pow¬ 
dered irregular proto-peroxide obtained by water for apothe¬ 
cary use. 6 Westrumb contended against Landriani and 
Girtanner that water cannot dissolve iron or its oxides. Water 
oxidizes iron more readily when it receives small quantities of 
a sulphuric, muriatic or nitric salt. On the other hand, an 
alkali or caustic lime destroys the oxidizing faculty of water. 
Some explain this fact by supposing the base to absorb the 
carbonic acid of the air in the water ; others by supposing an elec¬ 
trical relationship, which is supported by the previously-men- 

4 When only half so much of water is present as in brown hematite, or when the pro¬ 
portions are as 10.8: 89.2, the crystals thus rarely formed are called Goethite , Lepidokro¬ 
kite,Turgite or Pyrosiderite (fiery iron ore, from their brilliant color in a strong light)._ 

Dana., and Penny Cyc. 

6 D’Aubuisson gives Perox. Fe. 82, water 14, ox. mang. 2, silica 1 ( Penny Cyc.); 
Thompson gives a meanof Perox. Fe. 80.5, water 15.0, sesquiox. mang. 1.3, silica 2.0, or 
1 atom of peroxide of iron and 1 atom of water. 

6 Karsten, § 144. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


273 


tioned increase of the faculty by salts which T , ~ 

* , , ,. T) Iron and Oxygen. 

are not decomposed m tlie oxidation, rayen 

made extensive experiments to determine the limit of this veto 
power which alkalis possess over the oxidation of iron in water, 
and found that a saturated solution of potash lye diluted with 
from 1,000 to 2,000 parts water could still protect iron from 
rust, but not when diluted with from 3,000 to 4,000 parts 
water. Saturated lime-water, when diluted three times, 
that is, holding one 3,000tli its weight pure lime, protected 
iron, but not when diluted four times. Saturated carbonate 
of natron, when diluted with from 49 to 54 volumes pro¬ 
tected iron, but not when diluted with 59 volumes. The 
finest cast steel was protected perfectly by even less pot¬ 
ash. 7 —Iron is perfectly oxidized by being often sprinkled 
with pure water, and then on being dried and roasted red-hot it 
loses 14.7 per cent of water, having in fact been a hydrated 
peroxide, or a peroxide positively combined with so much pure 
water. This hydrated peroxide is also precipitated from an 
acid solution of iron oxide by perfectly caustic ammoniac. It 
occurs also pretty pure in nature. 8 The hydrated jprotoxide can 
be got as a white precipitate by treating ablution of a protoxide 
salt with the caustic alkali, but with the least air it turns in¬ 
stantly to grey, then green, then dark-blue and then yellow, all 
mixtures of the two hydrates, and finally in free air to the pure 
brown hydrated peroxide. 9 

Moist air rusts iron yellow, and Bergman makes the rust to 
consist of 76 peroxide-iron + 24 carbonic acid, which is cer¬ 
tainly wrong; Hausmann, of peroxide + water; Thompson and 
Karsten, of basic carbonate of peroxide + water. Vauquelin 
has shown that rust, like all other porous bodies, absorbs any 
floating atmospheric impurities, and therefore often analyzes 
impurely, especially often exhibiting ammonia. BonsdorfFs 
numerous experiments show that house rust does not originate 
from the dampness of the air, even when in maximo, but from 
contact-electricity passing between oxidized edges and rough- 
nesses and the pure iron, precipitating the moisture of the air 
and making iron hydrates; other foreign substances, as sul¬ 
phuretted hydrogen, acetic acid, etc. interfering to cause 


» Karsten, § 145. 


8 Karsten, § 146. 
18 


• Karsten, § 147. 


274 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


hasten or mediate the process; sulphuretted hydrogen for 
instance making first sulphuret of iron, which oxidizes itself 
into sulphate of iron, which decomposes into basic sulphate of 
the peroxide.'—White pig metal can scarcely rust; grey iron 
easier; bar iron still easier, especially when red-short. Cold¬ 
short iron rusts least and slowest. Pure air and polish prevent rust 
best; also oils that are free from water and do not thicken with 
time, especially, according to Conte, a mixture of } fat oil var¬ 
nish and | rectified turpentine oil; according to Aikin, caoutchouc 
dissolved in turpentine. 2 —Lacker is used to protect iron from 
rust. Bluing also in a slow fire protects iron from rust (it is 
hard to say why) and is much used for nails and tacks. Iron 
is sometijmes “ browned ” or rusted with acids, to protect it from 
further rust. 3 

Thompson says the pure peroxide in nature always occurs 
massive and never crystalline ; that all crystalline forms of it 
have lost half the atom of water and become dihydro\is per¬ 
oxide, making nodules of fine needles diverging like a painter’s 
brush, with a right rhombic prism for their primitive form; 
lustre metallic and silky; constituents Perox. Fe. 91.7, water 
8.5. The common fibrous brown peroxide occurs pure in masses, 
characterized by curved radiation, forming needle ore. The 
compact uncrystallized forms are seen in pipe and grape ore. 
True brown hematite is fibrous and silky inside, dark brown 
outside, scratching dull yellow and making a yellow mud. 
Before the blow-pipe it blackens and becomes magnetic; with 
borax in the inner flame, makes a green glass; yields water 
when heated in a glass tube. It occurs in rocks of all ages and 
is evidently a second-hand process by leaching or weathering. 
It forms that immense range of deposits from Vermont to Ala¬ 
bama inside the Blue Kidge, and occurs locally along the out¬ 
crops of the limestone iron ores of the coal measures, and in 
kidney and pea-shaped balls in many later formations. It forms 
all the bog ores along the Atlantic and Lake seaboards, and most 
of the iron ores of the Talley of the Mississippi. These un- 
crystallized deposits have hitherto formed the iron wealth of 
the United States, as the carbonates form the iron wealth of 
England; but the crystallized varieties have until lately proved 


' Karsten, § 148. 


3 Karsten, § 149. 


3 Karsten, § 150. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


275 



tor difficult for furnace use, and therefore T , ~ 

I , , . . ’. ,. Iron and Oxygen. 

n9' e been managed only m the bloomary 

or Catalan forge. At Gellivara, in Sweden, a mountain of 
specular ore exists which has never been touched for manufac¬ 
turing purposes, and perhaps never will be. 4 

The Proto-peroxide, octahedral iron ore , fer 
oxidule , ferroferricoxide , is the Magnetic mixture 
of the protoxide and per (or sesqui) oxide in fixed 
proportions (as Berzelius first showed) of 4.5 :: 10.0 
or 1 to 2 ; one atom of iron is therefore combined 
with one and a third of oxygen, or three atoms 
of iron with four of oxygen, in double groups, 
Fe O-fFe 2 O 3 , the odd or unsatisfied atom of 
oxygen in some way best known to itself produc¬ 
ing the polarity of the mass. It contains, therefore, 
28.4 of oxygen and 71.6 of iron ; whereas the pure 
per (sesqui) oxide contains 30.66 of oxygen and 60.33 of iron. 
Magnetic iron ore is therefore per se the purest iron ore at 
man’s command, and at the same time is the purest practically 
and geologically considered, occurring in separate masses in the 
earth and yielding the best iron in the working. There are 
however arenaceous deposits of various impurity. Its crystal¬ 
line form is primarily in cubes, commonly in regular octa¬ 
hedrons (the edges of which are often replaced by tangent 
planes, sometimes to such an extent as to make the crystal 
rhombic or garnet dodecahedron), cleaving parallel to the pri¬ 
mary faces. Its uncrystalline form is granular or else compact, 
fracture conchoidal, uneven; color iron black, lustre metallic, 
scratching and powdering black (not red like the peroxide or 
specular ore); hardness 5.5 to 6.5 (scratching fluor spar, and 
scratched by quartz); specific gravity 5.092, according to 
Thompson (by others placed as low as 4.4); strongly attracted 
by the magnet, and sometimes being a magnet itself, exhibiting 
polarity; infusible before the blow-pipe, and requiring a high 
heat in the blast furnace; forming with borax or with the 
biphosphate of soda, in the oxidizing flame, a dull red glass, 
becoming clear and often yellowish on cooling, and in the inner 
or reducing flame a bottle-green glass; not fusing with carbon 


4 Whitney, p. 428. 


276 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


ate of soda. It may be made by passing water over iron heated 
in a porcelain tube, and forms most of the scales which fall from 
iron bars passing through the mill rolls. Sulphuric acid dis¬ 
solves and separates it into the two oxides. Its black streak 
and its magnetic property are sufficient to distinguish it from 
the specular ores. The oldest rocks are its home. The Aren- 

dale and nearlv all the other Scandinavian mines are in massive 
•/ 

magnetic ore; the Dannemora and Taburg in southern Sweden 
and the Gellivara and Kureenavara in Lapland, the Essex, Clin¬ 
ton and Warren county mines in northern New York and the 
Warwick and Cornwall mines in eastern Pennsylvania are 
famous for their extent and the quality of iron they produce; 
and it yields the celebrated Indian wootz. The ore occurs in 
massive beds in granitoid and gneissoid rocks and primary 
slates, and in the neighborhood of trap dykes; and in scattered 
crystals in all metamorpliic strata of every age. Some hand 
specimens are powerful loadstones or natural magnets ; Siberia, 
the Hartz, Elba, and the metamorpliic regions of the United 
States have furnished them. Pliny calls the loadstone magnes, 
from Magnesia in ancient Lydia, where they were obtained by 
the Greeks. This is the ore which is cleaned before smelting 
by grinding it to a coarse powder and passing it through barrel¬ 
shaped separators armed with rows of magnets. It is said to be 
frequently titaniferous like the peroxide. It ought in fact to 
resemble in all its geological or structural features the peroxide 
ores, because the gain or loss of the fourth atom of oxygen 
which makes the difference between them and the consequent 
polarizing or depolarizing of the atoms en masse, seems to 
have been a subsequent, secondary or non-structural process, 
independent of the original deposition with the iron of other 
substances. 

Iron and Chlorine seem not to influence each other wdien 
they meet in the blast furnace; at least, no union of iron with 
small quantities of chlorine is known. 5 They form two unions. 
The protochloride (1 + 1=28 iron + 36 chlorine = 64) is got 
by heating iron red in a porcelain tube in dry hydrochloric gas, 
with evolution of hydrogen, as a white crystalline coating to the 
iron, subliming at a higher heat; or by drying in vacuo a solu- 


‘ Karsten, § 201. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


277 


tion of iron in hydrochloric acid, as a grey , d chlorine 

crystalline compound, soluble in water, not 

in alcohol, the solutions absorbing oxygen in air, precipitating 
sesquioxide iron, and retaining yellowish sesquicliloride iron, 
which in its turn, when heated high, gives off chlorine and absorbs 
oxygen, forming peroxide iron, but when slowly evaporated, 
forms green deliquescent rhombic hydrated crystals. 6 The 
reactions of this protochloride or “ protomuriate ” solution are 
important in geology, because iron deposited in the salt ocean 
must fall from such a solution; and we know that the alka¬ 
lies throw it down as protohydrate of iron, and their carbon¬ 
ates as protocarbonate of iron. These are precisely the two 
forms in which it appears where carbonic acid has been most 
abundant, to wit, in the coal measures. Hydro-sulphuric acid, 
however, gives no precipitate. All this points to carbonic acid 
as the great agent in the production of our beds of iron ore, 
under the supposition that the original condition of the iron, the 
sea solution, was a protochloride. 

The per or sesqui-chloride (14-1.5=28 +54=82) is obtained 
by heating iron wire in dry chlorine gas as brownish iridescent 
scales volatile at a low red; or by dissolving the sesquioxide of 
iron in hydrochloric acid, as reddish brown deliquescent soluble 
crystals; alkalies precipitate from this solution hydrated sesqui¬ 
oxide of iron, and so do their carbonates, because carbonic acid 
does not unite with the sesquioxide, but only with the prot¬ 
oxide. 


Iron and Bromine, and Iron and Iodine, are equally un¬ 
known. 7 But Iron and Iodine may be united by digesting iron 
filings in mixed iodine and water, as a green solution precipi¬ 
tated by evaporation as green tabular crystals of protiodide of 
iron (1 + 1, or 28 + 126 = 154), fusible to an opaque iron grey 
very deliquescent mass, soluble in water and alcohol, the solu¬ 
tion absorbing oxygen and throwing down peroxide of iron, 
unless an iron wire is kept in it. Per or sesqui-iodide of iron is 
got by digesting iron with excess of iodine and subliming to a 
red volatile deliquescent soluble alloy 1 + 1.5 or 28 + 189=217. 8 
Pyrosmalite , see under Iron and Silic m. 


6 Penny Cyc .— Iron. 


7 Karsten, § 201. 


8 Penny Cyc. 


278 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


Iron and Fluorine do not seem to unite when the ore and the 
spar are smelted together, and for the evil reputation of the latter 
at some furnaces is substituted so favorable a reputation at others, 
that it is supposed to insure a firm and particularly good iron. 9 

Iron and Carbon unite in the blast furnace to form raw iron 
or pig metal / and in the refinery fire under a glassy protection 
from the air, to make steel / a very old discovery, but first ein- 
* ployed by Birgman (followed by Rinman) to distinguish condi¬ 
tions of iron and show changes from one kind to another; while 
the still maintained doctrine of phlogiston stood in the way of 
its best application. Lavoisier’s new doctrine of chemical union 
let in light first in France upon the changes to which iron melted 
with coal was subject. Scheele discovered in 1799 that black- 
lead (Reissblei) was carbon, and Vandermonde, Berthollet and 
Monge in 1786 had shown its influence on iron. Men began to 
believe that raw iron contained more of it than steel because by 
reworking steel with it they could produce raw iron. Clouet, 
Mushet and others then tried to obtain steel by adding carbon 
to bar iron, but no one could regulate the quantity of carbon 
and therefore the hardness of the steel. Clouet then tried bodies 
that contained carbon in fixed combinations with oxygen, that 
is carbonic acid. Mushet next found that by melting bar iron 
in clay crucibles without carbon, it was changed with earths and 
glass fluxes exactly as with carbonate of lime. Tiemann reduced 
the oxide of iron by carbon to steel, but could not make it cer¬ 
tain whether bar iron, steel or raw iron would in a given case 
result. Probably the principal deficiency in all these experi¬ 
ments was in a careful observance of due temperature, which 
exerts a predominant influence especially over the constitution 
of the required raw iron. The only thing yet learned was that 
according to the amount of carbon used there ought to be ob¬ 
tained from the same ore bar iron, steel and raw iron; but to 
reduce this knowledge to practice was still a desideratum. 
Karsten describes the process but says its results cannot be 
guaranteed. Guyton Morveau, Clouet, Welter and ILachette 
in 1799 at Paris accomplished the elegant experiment of melt¬ 
ing together bar iron and diamonds and produced steel. 1 

9 Karsten, § 201. 

1 Karsten, § 152. His last quotation is from W. Clay’s Remarks of the now mode of 
producing wrought or malleable iron direct from the ore. Liverpool: 1838. 


IKON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


279 


-i j i , . Iron and Carbon. 

iron was not melted but only made 

white hot with carbon it became steel. Carbon, if air be 
excluded, can neither be volatilized nor melted at the very 
highest temperatures; and yet it will combine at a white glow 
heat with solid iron, and make cement steel; but not at a 
red glow T even in the lapse of weeks. This explains why a white 
heat must be avoided in reducing raw iron, for at a white heat 
it would become, not bar iron, but steel. 2 Yismara produced 
very good steel by conducting oil gas over iron in a close vessel, 
heated only to 54° to 60° AVedgewood. Boil-scum , iron-scum 
(Gaarschaum, eisenschaum), when analyzed is true graphite, 
black lead, or plumbago; cannot be melted in close vessels; is 
untouched at ordinary temperatures by acids or alkalies ; but 
burns in the air. Scheele, Gahn and Yon Saussure, as well as 
the later Davy, Allen and Pepys considered it a mixture of 
pure carbon with pure iron, in proportions about which they 
could not agree, varying from 4 to 10 per cent iron. But 
Karsten has proved both natural and artificial graphite to be 
in itself pure carbon and only mixed mechanically and acci¬ 
dentally with iron, etc. 3 

Analysis discovers graphite only in grey pig metal; this 
when suddenly cooled becomes white iron; and grey again 
when melted and slowly cooled; so that the difference consists 
not in the quantity but in the condition of the carbon in the 
iron. Mushet thought that the hardness of iron steadily in¬ 
creased as its carbon diminished until it reached l-60tli of the 
whole mass, which lost then its grain, and became silver white. 
Beyond this point the hardness diminished. His scale (l-15th 
dark grey iron; l-20th middle grade ; l-25th white iron ; l-50th 
steel too hard; l-90th hard cast steel; l-100th common cast 
steel; 1-120th soft cast steel) has gone into all text books, but 
is entirely incorrect, for soft, granular grey pig can become with 
no change of carbon a white, hard, brittle metal with a radiated 
fracture, and again a grey, soft, malleable, granular raw iron. 
French chemists have suspected oxygen in white pig metal. 

2 Karsten, §§ 135, 153. 8 § 154. 

4 Karsten, § 155, quoting Mushet on the different proportions of carbon which consti¬ 
tute the various qualities of crude iron and steel; in Telloch’s Phil. Mag. xii. 322-327 ; 
xiii. 3-9, 142-149. 


It was anciently known that when bar 


2 SO 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


But there is none ever found. An analysis finds no trace of 
graphite in pure white iron and steel, while grey iron always 
shows it, and vet contains less carbon than the white iron. Bar 
iron has still less carbon than steel, and when properly prepared 
not a trace, although it contains earthy bases. Graphite is no 
oxide but simply carbon in a metallic condition, and so appears 
in the process of analysis. The difference between white iron, 
hardened and unhardened steel and bar iron on the one hand 
and grey iron on the other, consists in the fact that they contain 
more undecomposed carbon and it more decomposed or metallic 
carbon, that is, graphite ; as solution in acids shows. The grey, 
soft, malleable, granular product obtained by simply bringing 
to a glow white, hard, brittle, radiated pig metal, and so sur¬ 
prisingly like grey iron in the fracture that to appearance 
nothing but its origin distinguishes them apart, this product 
gives to an analysis no trace of graphite but only decomposed 
carbon; and yet is as different from white iron as white is from 
grey. Three species of carbonized iron must then be formed, 
one with graphite, and tw T o without; or 1, grey pig; 2, white 
pig and hardened or brittle steel; 3, reheated white pig and 
unhardened or malleable steel; three sjDecies obtained at will 
by regulating the heat of the process, and thereby the inner 
relationships of the carbon and iron. White iron heated only 
to a glow becomes by slow cooling grey and soft but leaves 
no trace of graphite in an acid solution ; but when white iron 
is remelted and slowly cooled graphite appears in the acid 
solution. 6 

Iron cannot take up more than 5.25 to 5.75 per cent of 
carbon in any form, and then becomes specular pig metal. 
This leafy structure in white iron does not sensibly diminish 
until the percentage of carbon has fallen to 4.50, below which 
there is a change from a leafy, radiated, compact structure to a 
granular ; the white color disappearing at the rate the granular 
structure develops, giving place to a grey which grows lighter 
and lighter as the percentage of carbon continues to fall 
through the gradations of steely raw iron—raw iron steel—soft 
steel—iron steel and steel iron. The so-called cracked flow 
(luckigen Flossen) contains 3.50, and acts like very hard but not 
hardened steel. The changes of these varieties in the furnace 

6 Karsten, §§ 156, 167. 


IKON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


231 


under free air are easily explained by _ _ ~ . 

,, i i i Iron and Carbon, 

tlie burning out ot the carbon; but 

the change of hardened steel and white pig to soft steel and 
soft greyish pig by mere glow-lieating without air and no 
change of carbon remains unexplained. Water cast on pud¬ 
dling white iron decomposes and so helps the burning out of the 
carbon, and the iron is thereby sooner and with a lessened per 
centage of carbon brought to the same malleable condition that 
it would reach by a long-continued glow with exclusion of air 
and no diminution of carbon. The necessity of pressing and 
working the puddle shows that an essential change is going on 
in the internal texture. 

In the different kinds of steel the different percentages of 
carbon have been more closely distinguished. Karsten found 
different cast and raw steels contain 0.9 to 1.9, cement steel 
never more than 1.75. Bergman in his important work de 
analysi ferri gives his maximum as 0.8 and his minimum 0.2. 
Ho doubt he analyzed cement steel. Karsten found in Upper 
Silesian cement steel 1.3. Bar iron ought theoretically to hold 
no carbon, but some does hold as high as 0.8 and then comes 
very near soft steel. All hard firm excellent bar iron should 
have not more than 0.1; the softest has 0.2. Burnt iron retains 
no trace of carbon. Vauquelin gives 0.63 to 0.79 in raw steel. 
It must be remembered that to obtain with any exactness the 
percentage of carbon in iron is one of the most difficult tasks 
the chemist can fulfill. 6 

The percentage of graphite in grey iron varies according 
to Karsten’s experiments"from 2.57 to 2.75, and the whole per¬ 
centage of carbon in its graphitic and non-graphitic form from 
3.15 to 4.65; less therefore than that of specular white pig 
metal and less than that of most white pig of the blast furnaces. 
To get it into the form of graphite needs the highest heat, and 
that is why oxide ores which make grey iron in the gross make 
white iron in the small reducing fire with coal, and why bar 
iron with coal in small fires makes white iron. 7 It is evident 
that graphite cannot be produced except at the highest heat 
and cannot be preserved except by slow cooling. Sudden 
cooling scatters the carbon through the iron which becomes 
then white iron, the only true chemical unicn of carbon and 

• Karsten, §§ 158, 159. 7 Karsten, § 1G0. 


282 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


iron; grey iron being a mixture of slightly carbonized iron 
with uncompounded carbon or graphite. AVliite iron, smelted 
at a heat but little above melting point cools again white iron; 
and white iron long kept at a very high glow heat and cooled 
slowly has still less power to secrete graphite. If raw iron con¬ 
tains no more carbon than the white iron from which it was 
made and contains much of it mechanically in the form of 
graphite, it must be in reality an iron chemically containing 
very little carbon, even less in many cases than is contained in 
steel or even in bar iron. Hence we explain many of the 
qualities of raw iron, its granular structure, its low hardness, 
the slow increase of its hardness in the first degree of heat, its 
slow approach to a glow heat, its high viscidity and fluidity, its 
conduct at a glow heat in air, and its readiness to rust compared 
with white iron. Grey iron is then a mixture of steel-like iron 
and graphite; and slowly cooled grey soft iron must be a mix¬ 
ture of steel-like iron with a peculiar union of iron and much 
carbon. White iron and hardened steel will be regarded as 
similar unions of iron with different quantities of carbon. 8 

Steel may be easily distinguished from iron by dropping upon 
it a little nitric acid, which will form a black stain occasioned 
by the carbon which it develops, but it causes a whitish green 
mark upon iron. 9 

When purified or malleable iron is taken from the reverbe¬ 
ratory or puddling furnace and placed under the hammer, it 
contains a quantity of unreduced and still fluid cast iron (iron 
and carbon) which spirts forth from between the reduced iron 
at every blow until the whole is welded into a solid and con¬ 
sistent bar. Cast iron loses more than one-fourth of its weight 
in conversion into bard Together with the cast iron however 
the hammer excludes also a quantity of liquid slag or glass in 
which the puddiebloom floated while in the puddling furnace. 

Iron, Oxygen and Carbon unite to form Carbonate of Iron 
or more properly Carbonate of the Protoxide of Iron, Spathic or 
spathose iron , chalybite, brown spar , stahlstein and sphero- 
siderite or ball ore, called clay iron stone or argillaceous iron 
ore , eisenspath , spatheisenstein , oligonspath , etc. 

Iron and Carbonic Acid unite only when water takes part 

8 Karsten, § 162 to 165. Rules for the difficult analyses follow in § 166 to 169. 

9 Bache’s system of chemistry for medical students, p. 73. 1 Bache, p. 69. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL AGENT. 


283 


in the compound. The carbonate of the T 
protoxide is soluble in much water and r ° n 811 ar ° n * 
long remains dissolved through free carbonic acid in com¬ 
mon temperature; its solubility being further increased and 
confirmed by the presence of carbonate alkaline salts; but a 
slow precipitation of yellow-brown basic carbonate of the 
proto-peroxide takes place, showing itself first as the rain¬ 
bow-tinted film floating on the surface, so well known to 
hunters and coal and iron miners by the name of “painted 
water.” Pure carbonate of the protoxide is white, but 
becomes yellow as soon as the precipitate dries. It is spathic 
iron, 61.47 iron + 38.53 carbonic acid. Its hydrate if it has 
one is not known. The carbonate of the peroxide is not 
known either in nature or art, because all carbonate alkaline 
precipitates of the acid solutions of iron are double, or proto¬ 
peroxides mixed with the hydrated peroxide. When a highly 
concentrated carbonate alkali precipitates a highly concentrated 
solution of iron-oxide in any acid, the precipitate is itself 
redissolved and we get a clear brown-yellow crystallizable solu¬ 
tion (Dobereiner), once known as the iron tincture of steel , out 
of which grows the iron tree , arborescontia martis. When not 
concentrated no such exhibitions occur and the oxide falls 
pure and basic. 2 3 

Crystallized, sparry or spathic, carbonate of iron is rather 
abundant in primary or metamorphic rocks, frequently occur¬ 
ring with lead and copper; in rhombohedrous 3 and six-sided 
prisms often with slightly curved faces, cleav¬ 
ing parallel to a rhombohedron of 107°; and 
also in foliated masses the leaves somewhat 
curving, the lustre between pearly and vitreous, 
texture translucent, streak white, hardness 3 to 
4.5, specific gravity 3.7 to 3.85 which distin¬ 
guishes it from the lighter foliated calc spar and dolomite; 
blackens before the blow-pipe into a very magnetic iron; is 



2 Karsten, § 219. 

3 The obtuse rhomboids approach pretty nearly to the shape of the primary crystal 
of calcarious spar. Sometimes the angle 0 is replaced by three planes which when 
large form a kind of elongated double three-side prism, terminated by the half of the 
original rhomboid. Not unfrequently the lateral angles of the rhomboid are replaced 
by tangent planes, which converts the crystal into a regular six-sided prism. Very 
large crystals of this shape have been found in Cornwall.— Thompson, ii. p. 445. 





284 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


infusible alone ; colors borax green ; dissolves in nitric acid blit 
scarcely effervesces unless pulverized ; and is analyzed into 
carbonic acid 38.63, and protoxide of iron 61.37 (atoms 1 : 1), 
with frequently the accidental presence of the carbonates of 
magnesia and lime and the protoxide of manganese in small 
quantities. 

Junkerite crystals contain about 4. of magnesia (with a variable amount of silica 
from 8. to 16. in two specimens) according to Thompson, but Dana says the mag¬ 
nesia has proved to be since Thompson wrote also accidental. In Thomaite 
rhombic prisms its specific gravity is 3.1. In Mesitine spar , Breunnerite , or much 
of what is called rhomb spar and brown spar , becoming rusty on exposure, the 
yellowish rhombohedric crystals contain manganese. Oligon spar is a similar yel¬ 
low or reddish brown rhombohedric crystal with manganese. 

Ankerite, rohwand , rohe wand , ross zahn , horse tooth , wandstein, wall stone in 
Stiria and Carinthia, poratornous lime haloid of Mohs, is an abundant stratum in 
mica slate in the eastern Alps, and remind us of some of the more magnesian lime¬ 
stone iron ores of the Ohio and Kentucky coal measures. Thompson gives its 
analysis as 20.0 carb. iron, 51.1 carb. lime, 25 *7 carb. magnesia (3.0 carb. manga¬ 
nese), or 3 + 8 + 5 atoms. 

Sparry iron ore often contains magnesia, as it often contains 
lime. Dana gives the definite proportion of breunerite , bitter 
sjpar, crown spar , mesitine , talkspath, magnesitspath, 
as 58 carbonate of iron+ 42 carbonate of magnesia. Sometimes 
carbonate of manganese, or carbonate of lime is present; and the 
variations from the normal proportion is very great. 4 Thomp¬ 
son gives under magnesia carbonate of iron the sparry ore of 
Grande Fosse near Yizille, light-yellow, foliated, divisible into 
large rhomboids, 43.6 protoxide iron (2 atoms) + 42.6 carbonic 
acid (1 atom) + 12.8 Magnesia, with 1.0 protoxide manganese. 
It is in fact a mere mixture, as all the carbonate ores of iron 
are. The dolomite etc. of Dana almost always contain some 
carbonate of iron, and yet is normally a double carbonate of 
lime and magnesia in infinitely varied proportions. The carbo¬ 
nates have been always thrown down together in sand and mud 
and mixed unequally, not segregating from each other but 
aggregating in various proportions; and the crystallization of 
the compounds seem to admit almost as much variety as the 
uncrystallized or amorphous forms. 

Uncrystallized carbonate of iron or clay iron is in reality 
a mixture of the crystallized in the form of an impalpable 


4 Dana, ii. 444. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


285 


Iron and Carbon.' 


powder, with clay and sand, and some¬ 
times coal; hence its variety of form, 
color, fracture, grain and percentage of material. It occurs 
in all formations, in scattered balls (sphserosiderite), in plates, 
and disseminated through thick sandstone strata. If clay 
predominates it has a downy conchoidal fracture, earthy- 
grey color, and a specific gravity of a little below 3. If sand 
predominates, it has a harsh, angular, gritty surface and a 
specific gravity as high as 3.47. The practical average of 
carbonate of iron in the British coal-measure clay-iron 
stones is stated by the Penny Cyclopaedia at one-tliird, hut 
Colqulioun’s analyses of eight specimens of Crossbasket, Clyde 
Works, Easterhouse and Airdree blackband, 5 show an average 
of about 43.0 protoxide of iron and 32.0 carbonic acid making 
three-fourths of the mass carbonate of iron. Berthier’s analyses 
of nineteen specimens from various coal measure beds in 
France 6 show an average of 32.7 protoxide of iron and 22.4 car¬ 
bonic acid, the highest rising to 54.2 protoxide iron and 46.7 
carbonic acid, the lowest falling to 13.5 and 24.6. But Thomp¬ 
son shows that in all these varieties there is a mixture 
merely mechanical of the carbonates of iron, lime and magne¬ 
sia, with pyrites, clay and coal, in infinitely various proportions. 
The first analysis given by Colquhoun he readjusts as follows: 


COLQUHOUN. 


Carbonic acid. 

Protoxide of iron..... . 
oripsin. 

.32.53 

. 35.22 

. 5.19 

lamp . 

. 8.62 

Silica...*. 

. 9.56 

Alumina . 

. 5.34 

Peroxide of iron. 

. 1.16 

Coaly matter . 

. 2.13 

Sulphur. 

. 0.62 


Total.100.37 


Thompson. 

Carbonate of iron. 55.697 

Carbonate of lime. 15.390 

Carbonate of magnesia. 10.899 

Clay (silic : alumina). 16.060 

Pyrites (sulph : iron). 1.125 

Coaly matter . 2.130 


Total.101.301. 

The excess of total being due to 
deficiency of carbonic acid, for satu- 
rating the iron, lime and magnesia 


A specimen from the Monkland canal he found to contain 80.2 
carbonate of iron, with a specific gravity of 3.505, the purest 
clay-iron stone he had ever seen except a specimen cf Mushet’s 
blackband yielding: 


6 Thompson, ii., 446. 


6 Ibid, ii., 447. 



















286 

PART 

II.—DIVISION I. 


COLQUHOUN. 


Thompson. 


Carbonic acid,. 

35.17 

Carbonate of iron,. 

... 85.437 

Protoxide of iron. 

53.03 

Carbonate of lime,. 

... 5.946 

Lime,. 

3.33 

Carbonate of magnesia,. ..., 

.... 3.317 

Magnesia. 

1.77 

Clay,. 


Silica,. 

1.40 

Coaly matter,. 

... 3.030 

Alumina,. 

0.63 

Total, 99.990, 


Peroxide of iron,. 

023 

showing again a loss of 1.4 grain of car- 

Coaly matter,. 

3.03 

bonic acid, provided the iron, lime and 

Total, 98.58 


magnesia are in a state of 

saturation. 


The American coal measure ores have been analyzed to the 
number of many hundreds by the chemists of t the State Surveys 
and exhibit the same constituent elements, in a range of propor¬ 
tions of even greater extent. One of the earliest and most ex¬ 
tensive suites of analyses published was that made in the labora¬ 
tory of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey by Dr. Robert E. 
Rogers and Professor Martin H. Boye in 1839, 1840. 7 The 
specimens came from the anthracite and bituminous coal basins 
of Pennsylvania and the analyses separate naturally into three 
groups, the simple unchanged proto-carbonate ores, the proto- 
carbonate ores partially reduced to peroxides, and the once 
proto-carbonate ores wholly converted into peroxides. 

The following table A, B, C, shows these varieties arranged 
according to the percentage in each group. The first column 
gives the number of the specimen in the report of the State 
chemists; the second, the percentage of proto-carbonate of iron; 
the third, that of peroxide; the fourth, that of pure iron. It 
will be seen at a glance how much wider a practical range of 
percentage of pure iron the last group has (58.-18.) than the 
first (40.-19.), the range of the middle group being intermediate 
(42.-26.). 

Lately several hundred analyses have been made by Dr. 
Peters of the Kentucky State Geological Survey which repeat 
the same exhibition. An almost insensible graduation of per¬ 
centages between the highest and lowest limits is seen resem¬ 
bling the change of colors along the solar spectrum and curiously 
enough with occasional blanks or gaps at irregular intervals like 
the “dark bands” in the spectrum. These would no doubt 
diminish with an additional number of specimens, but it is quite 


7 Annual Reports for 1840, 1841. 















[EON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


287 


# 


possible that they are essentially due _ , ^ 

f / it Iron and Carbon. 

to regular interferences, or mark the 

limits of atomic combinations among the numerous constitu¬ 
ents of the specimens. These are protoxide iron, peroxide 
iron, carbonic acid, silica, potassa, soda, magnesia, alumina, 
lime, phosphorus, sulphur, carbon and water, all of them 


confined in their atomic combinations to strict arithmetical 


limits, while unrestricted as 
to the mechanical admixtures 
of their combinations one 
with another. The following 
table D, shows the gradual 
fall of percentage of proto¬ 
carbonate of iron through a 
range of specimens (number¬ 
ed as in Dr. Peters’ reports), 
with the additional amount 
of peroxide in the specimens 
and their total value as pure 
iron. The analyses stopped 
at 12.42 because in fact as 
low as this nothing is called 
ore that contains iron; the 
test might have been con- 
tinued to 1 per cent. It will 
be seen that the accidental 
amount of peroxide in the 
specimen is what determines 
its value as an ore; the 
highest percentage of pure 
iron (52.95) occurring nearly 
at the bottom of the list where 
the proto-carbonate element 
was only 42.26 but the addi¬ 
tional peroxide was 46.65. 


No. 

Carbonate of iron. 

Peroxide. 

Iron. 

37 

A. 

84.24 



(39.93) 

1 


80.97 



(39.09) 

14 


79.70 



(38.05) 

15 


76.30 



(37.03) 

48 


74.50 



(35.98) 

6 


72.00 



(36.00) 

44 


71.19 



(34.37) 

40 


69.00 



(33.32) 

4 


67.80 



(33.90) 

3 


65.30 



(32.60) 

49 


63.20 



(30 52) 

42 


55.82 



(26.95) 

58 


54 33 



(25.34) 

28 


45 50 



(22.05) 

39 


45.30 



(21.86) 

23 


44.79 



(27.05) 

36 


43.89 



(20.79) 

2 


39.82 



(19.21) 

38 

B. 

73.94 

+ 

10.36 

(42.22) 

43 


73.81 

+ 

4.24 

(38.59) 

57 


68.32 

+ 

15.54 

(32 95) 

45 


67.20 

+ 

7.48 

(37 24) 

26 


66.67 

+ 

2.55 

(33.96) 

56 


66.37 

+ 

20.49 

(45.64) 

52 


60.90 

+ 

12.60 

(38.22) 

50 


58.00 

+ 

8.45 

(45 92) 

47 


56.90 

+ 

24.90 

(44.87) 

55 


56.83 

+ 

13.21 

(36.11) 

46 


55.10 

+ 

9.50 

(34.72) 

54 


50.48 

+ 

12.79 

(32.77) 

33 


48.33 

+ 

15.06 

(33.35) 

25 


42.38 

+ 

21.32 

(34.86) 

27 


39.54 

+ 

14.57 

(32.52) 

31 


35.13 

+ 

28.10 

(41.88) 

32 


31.53 

+ 

31.31 

(37.14) 

30 


31.07 

+ 

14.37 

(25.05) 

5 


26.02 

+ 

19.36 

(26.39) 

11 

C. 



83.00 

(58.10) 

21 




80.12 

(56.07) 

12 




79.20 

(55.44) 

17 




78.60 

(54.75) 

22 




78.22 

(55.02) 

20 




76.10 

(53.27) 

19 




65.20 

(45.64) 

24 




26.69 

(18.51) 




L/i 

153 

153 

97 

38 

447 

151 

199 

37 

118 

75 

482 

409 

710 

410 

479 

449 

443 

411 

7 

120 

416 

150 

148 

153 

149 

49 

656 

311 

390 

100 

488 

312 

50 

294 

152 

493 

452 

600 

633 

407 

445 

60 

757 

440 

121 

632 

74 


PART II.—DIVISION I 


Carbonate 

Peroxide 


Per cent 

of iron. 


of iron. 


of iron. 

86.10 

+ 

.23 


41.42 

85.44 

+ 

.23 

= 

41.00 

79.72 

+ 

4.52 

— 

41.26 

78.51 

+ 

5.57 

— 

41.80 

78.35 

+ 

3.36 

= 

39.20 

74.46 

+ 

1.15 

— 

36.80 

73.13 

+ 

4.94 

zzz 

38.81 

72.86 

+ 

7.42 

= 

39.42 

70.60 

+ 

5.42 

— 

37.53 

70.39 

+ 

13.14 

= 

43.20 

70.27 

+ 

10.16 

= 

4070 

70.20 

+ 

9.92 


37.45 

69.96 

+ 

2.64 


35.64 

68.46 

+ 

3.41 

= 

35.45 

67.84 

+ 

5.89 


37.46 

67.72 

+ 

6.99 

= 

37.60 

67.50 

+ 

1.28 

— 

33.12 

66.01 

+ 

2.67 

— 

33.05 

65.96 

+ 

7.19 

— 

36.90 

65.93 

+ 

8.63 

= 

37 55 

65.13 

+ 

7.78 


37.04 

64.90 

+ 

7.41 


36.54 

64.87 

+ 

4 39 

= 

34.18 

62 59 

+ 

14.79 

— 

40.26 

62.42 

+ 

3.38 

= 

32.52 

62.24 

+ 

2.68 


31.93 

61.73 

+ 


IZ 

26.84 

60.49 

+ 

6.25 

'— 

22.57 

60.40 

+ 

21.38 

= 

43.82 

60.36 

+ 

2.33 

= 

30.46 

57.59 

+ 

7.77 

— 

32.62 

56.92 

+ 

14.14 

= 

37.10 

56.58 

+ 

4.86 

— 

30 70 

64 42 

+ 

30.24 

— 

47.51 

54.32 

+ 

6.75 

nz 

31.17 

53.64 

+ 

7.71 


31.30 

53.02 

+ 

20.73 


35.60 

52.60 

+ 

13.64 

nz 

42.72 

51.24 

+ 

9.42 

= 

31.62 

47.97 

+ 

10.66 

— 

30.77 

47.84 

+ 


= 

41.63 

46.40 

+ 

8.28 

zzz 

28.20 

45.12 

+ 

16.46 

zzz 

33.86 

43.90 

+ 

23.06 

— 

35.02 

42.68 

+ 

17.02 


32.37 

42.26 

+ 

46.65 

= 

52.95 

41.98 

+ 

44.66 

— 

43.65 


No. 

Carbonate 


Peroxide 


Per cent 


of iron. 


of iron. 


of iron. 

708 

33 50 

+ 

5.50 


.29.69 

406 

32.29 

+ 

5 01 

— 

19.10 

475 

28.09 

+ 

14.42 

ZZZ 

23.62 

61 

23.54 

+ 


— 

11.35 

124 

17.84 

+ 

25.08 

— 

25.30 

122 

17 42 

+ 

24.80 

— 

25.68 

14 

14.26 


16.17 

— 

18.55 

24 

12.42 

+ 

14.07 

ZZI 

15.86 


Tlie principal ingredient 
in these carbonate ores is 
silica, not as combined, but 
as an admixture. Table E 
is a selection of a few of 
these analyses in the order of 
their silica contents. 


E. 


No. 

Carb. of Iron. 

Peroxide. 

Iron. 

Silica. 

312 

56.92 

+ 

14.14 = 

:37.10 

16.15 

410 

68.46 

+ 

3.41 = 

35.45 

19.65 

757 

45.12 

+ 

16.46 = 

33.86 

19.92 

475 

28.09 

+ 

14.42 = 

23.62 

19.98 

600 

52.60 

+ 

13.64 = 

42.72 

20.78 

443 

67.50 

+ 

1.28 = 

33.12 

21.45 

708 

33.50 

+ 

5.50 = 

29.69 

21.48 

311 

60.49 

+ 

5.25= 

32.57 

21.82 

440 

43.90 

+ 

23.06= 

35.02 

22.15 

656 

61.73 

+ 

0.00= 

26.84 

27.14 

633 

51 24 


9.42= 

31.62 

32.48 

406 

32 29 

+ 

5.01 = 

19.10 

51 55 


Alumina is a much less sig¬ 
nificant element; but in some 
earthy ores its percentage 
rises to 5 or 10 per cent. 
Carbonate of lime on the 
contrary graduates so high 
as to convert the iron ore 
into a ferruginous limestone 
and that in a geographical 
distance of a few hundred 
yards. Table F will show 
this, the high increase of 
lime necessarily involving 
the low percentage of iron. 







IKON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


289 


The percentage of carbonate of mag;- _ , , 

r ® i ** , . Iron and Carbon. 

nesia runs up to 10 and lo per cent in 

some cases, but commonly keeps down to 5 or less. Phosphoric 


F. 


No. 

Carbonate. 


Peroxide. 

Pure Iron. 

Carbonate of Lime. 

151 

74.46 

+ 

1.15 = 

36.80 

2.45 

152 

54.32 

+ 

6.75 = 

31.17 

3.87 

708 

33.50 

+ 

5.50 = 

29.69 

4.58 

124 

17.84 

+ 

25.08 = 

25.30 

5.97 

6.153 

85.44 

+ 

.23 = 

41.00 

5.94 

488 

57.59 

+ 

7.77 = 

32.62 

6.28 

407 

47.97 

+ 

10.66 = 

30.77 

7.25 

24 

12.42 

+ 

14.07 = 

15.86 

18 48 

475 

28.09 

+ 

14.42 = 

23.62 

29.37 

60 

46.40 

+ 

8.28 = 

28.20 

32.15 

122 

17.42 

+ 

24.80 = 

25.68 

32.85 

14 

14.26 

+ 

16.17 = 

18.55 

35.15 

61 

23.54 

+ 

0.00 = 

11.35 

67.33 

d seldom reaches 1 

per cent, but 

in one instance Dr. Peters 


found 29.49 phosphate of lime where the carbonate of lime was 
18.48, silica 16.07 and pure iron only 15.86. The carbonate of 
manganese is always present ranging between 1 and 3 per cent 
but sometimes going up to 5 and 6. 

Blackband is the above admixture of carbonates with a 
notable percentage of uncombined carbon or coaly matter, 
bitumen, or the coal-gas oils. Of eight varieties of clay iron¬ 
stone from the neighborhood of Glasgow analysed by Colquhoun 
not one had less than 1.5 coal; Mushet’s blackband had 3.03; 
and this is the one which also contains most carbonic acid, 
35.17, and most of it in combination with iron (carbonate of 
iron 85.437). 8 Dr. Colquhoun found the amount of bituminous 
matter in a range of blackband ores vary from 1.86 to 17.38 
per cent. The Kentucky blackband ores vary in bituminous 
matter from 1 to 11 per cent. 9 

Thompson gives a phosphatic carbonate of iron analyzed by Karsten in the Ann. 
des Mines, iii. 253, 1827, occurring in beds in the Jura limestone at Vignes and used 
by the iron smelters on the Moselle, of a deep greenish blue (not unlike chamoisite), 
oolitic, grains not larger than a millet seed, magnetic, specific gravity 3.71, dissolv¬ 
ing slowly with effervescence in muriatic acid, depositing silica which will not gela¬ 
tinize and therefore is only accidentally present, probably as an original loose sand 
enveloped by the mineral material, as the peroxide of iron envelops the oJlitic 
Upper Silurian ore of Formation Y. Karsten’s analysis is 41.12 peroxide iron, 30.00 
protoxide iron + 11.87 carbonic acid, 3.38 phosphoric acid, 7.00 silica, 2.14 lime, 
2.90 water, 0.77 magnesia, the last four being impurities, and the first four arranged 


8 Thompson, i. 446. 


9 Dr. Peters, K.S. Vol. i. pp. 365. 

19 




290 


PART II.—DIVISION I. 


as 6 atoms carbonate iron + 1 atom diphosphate iron + 3 atoms of (1 pro- + 1 per-) 
oxide iron. 1 Nothing could show better than this instance the heterogeneous and 
accidental constituency of these carbonate ores of iron as they occur in all parts ot 
the globe and in formations of every age. 

Hydrous Carbonate of Iron, or Brown Spar, according to Thompson is a 
hydrous carbonate of the protoxide and peroxide of iron , in dirty, entangled, rhom- 
boidal crystals, pearly, dull, opaque, brittle, H. 3.25, S. G. 3.404, composed of 30.27 
protoxide + 18.5 carbonic acid, and 57.65 peroxide + 8.30 water, with 4.75 prot¬ 
oxide of manganese thrown in, the original carbonate of iron having become 
partially peroxidized and then hydrated by water taking the place of an equivalent 
quantity of carbonic acid set free. 2 

Dana’s Brown-spar is a carbonite of manganese, with a small variable quantity of 
carbonate of iron and other impurities, called diallogite , etc. Its resemblance to 
iron is remarkable in the case of the layer two inches thick at the bottom of the 
Irish bog at Glendree, county Clare. 3 This is an exhibition of importance in dis¬ 
cussing the presence of the hydrated peroxide beds of iron ore in the coal measures. 

Iron and Boron combine with difficulty when borate of iron is heated to redness 
in a stream of hydrogen. Lassaigne got 77.43 iron + 22.57 boron thus as a silver 
white brilliant mass protecting itself from acid action by coating itself with its own 
disengaged boron. 4 Lagonite, a yellow ochre incrusting the Tuscan lagoons, con¬ 
tains 37.8 (36.26) peroxide iron, 49.5 (47.95) boracic acid, 12.7 (14.02) water. 5 

Iron and Silica (sand) unite closest at a high heat. Berze¬ 
lius was able to make iron and silicium unite by cementing 
iron filings and powdered sand in coal dust; and in the same 
way as iron and carbon unite. He found no injury done to the 
malleability of the iron, but only that its softness depended on 
the thoroughness with which the carbon was worked out of it. 
The more silicium the less the specific gravity of the alloy. In 
dissolving in acids it gives out more hydrogen than the purest 
bar iron does, because iron can take never more than 30 per 
cent oxygen, but silicium can take over 50, and therefore can 
decompose more water. Stromeyer made numerous alloys with 
from 2.25 to 9.30 per cent of silicium, but unfortunately the 
alloy could not be studied pure because the carbon increased in 
proportion with the silicium ; so much however seemed clear 
that no harm was done either to the tenacity or to the ductility 
of the iron. Karsten’s experiments in Upper Silesia, on a grand 
scale with pure quartz sand said the same thing. In the refinery 
the silicium is mostly separated and s' agggd off*. The rule does 
not always hold good that grey iron holds more silicium than 
white (because produced at a higher heat); much depends on the 

Thompson, i. 474. 2 Thompson, i. 470. 3 Dana, ii. 447. 4 Pen. Cyc. 5 Dana, ii. 395. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


291 


preparation. Raw iron seldom holds less T , 

fi A -i -I-, 0 A Iron and Silicon. 

than 0.4, and may hold more than 3.0 per 

cent silicium. Other things equal, hot blast pig holds at least 
0..3 per cent more than cold blast. Bar iron and steel may 
vary between 0.001 and 0.1 but at 0.05 they should lose 
their reputation. Boussingault showed that in bar iron and 
steel silica became silicon (silicium) even at cement heat and 
combined like carbon with the iron. But if pure iron is 
melted in close crucibles it takes up silicon and grows more 
fusible thereby; 6 in Hessian crucibles it received 1.0 silica or 
0.54 silicon. But as Karsten remarks small experiments too 
often deceive. Silicon cannot make such steel as carbon can, 
although it hardens iron, for experiments in the gross certify 
that it injures the tenacity of iron very seriously, and is the 
cause through imperfect puddling of so much rotten-short (faub 
briichig) bar iron. Even 0.37 silicon is enough to ruin the 
tenacity of iron. Karsten instituted numerous analyses of such 
iron and found nothing present but silicon except minute and 
unimportant traces of phosphorus. He convinced himself that 
silicon was far more injurious in this particular respect than 
phosphorus. Ho original pig metal is destitute of it, more or 
less. Carbon the same, that pig metal which has most silicon is 
the hardest and the brittlest. Silicon never is seen in the blast 
furnace hearth, but is always in the iron. When pig metal that 
has much of it cools, the silicon partly separates itself as a pure 
white oxide (silica) sometimes beautifully radiant or stellal* or 
uniformly fibrous ; curiously sometimes in the cavities and vesi¬ 
cles of the pig metal; but the metallic silicon never appears. 
Even when the oxide, of titanium is reduced, the silicon still 
appears only as an oxide, not seldom in beautiful parallel or 
diverging crooked and straight fibres of mingled white and silky 
lustre even to the depth of half an inch pure silica. The greatest 
per centage of silicium (silicon) Karsten ever found in raw iron 
was 3.46, and that under rare circumstances. Even 1.00 (=2.00 
silica) is remarkable. Coke iron holds more than charcoal iron 
usually. 7 In the analysis only the 5tli or 6th of the silica 


# Mushet had already discovered that bar iron melted with pure quartz and became 
harder and more brittle and steel like. 

» §§ 237, 238. 



292 


rART II.-DIVISION I. 


remains in the coaly residuum ; the rest is dissolved and lost in 
the acid. 8 

Hydrous di-silicate of iron, sideroschisolite 75*5 protoxide iron + 16.3 silica 
+ 7.3 water + 4.1 alumina ( = 2 + l + i atoms) is a pure velvet black small (micro¬ 
scopic) tetrahedral, specular, splendent, opaque crystal, lining cavities in magnetic 
pyrites and sparry iron ore, powdering to a leek green, hardness 2.5, specific 
gravity 3, fusing easily to an iron black magnetic bead (the crystals when held to a 
candle-flame lose the velvet look and become iron black and are strongly attracted 
by the magnet), dissolves completely in muriatic acid to a greenish yellow solution. 
Chamoisite is a bihydrous disilicate mineral found in thick and numerous local 
deposits, in the ammonite limestone of Chamoisin (lias ?), granular or earthy, dark 
green grey, very magnetic, opaque, irregularly fracturing, scratched by steel, 
specific gravity 3 to 3.4, and composed of 50.5 protoxide of iron + 12.0 silica + 14.7 
water and bitumen ( + 14.4 car. lime, 6.6 alum, 1.2 car. mag.) =2 + 1+2 atoms, dif¬ 
fering from the last species in containing twice as much water. Dana calls it a mix¬ 
ture of magnetic iron and hydrous silicate of alumina. 9 

Silicate of iron, iron chrysolite , eisenperidot , fayalite , 70.45 protoxide iron 
+ 29.55 silica occurs in an Irish dark brown foliated magnetic crystal with the addi¬ 
tion of 1.78 manganese. The hydrous silicate, or cronstedite , is a tourmaline like 
brown black (streak dark leek green) massive kidney form, foliated, vitreous, opaque, 
elastic, regularly six-sided prism, frothing a little without melting before the blow¬ 
pipe, non-magnetic, and containing 58 protoxide iron + 22 silica + 10.7 water with 
protoxide manganese and magnesia accidentally r^l + l + l. 1 

A bihydrous bisesquisilicate of iron called Hedenbergite occurs near the Zunaberg 
copper works in Sweden, with 35.25 protoxide iron-4-40 62 silica—f-16.05 water 
-{—3.37 lime, etc., = 1 -{—2.5—f—2 atoms; in greenish black massive shining plates. 2 

Chloropal is another curious quinto or ter-silicate of* iron according to the 
different analyses 33 protoxide-{-46 silica or 26 peroxide-f-53 silica. 3 It is a green¬ 
ish yellow massive earthy conchoidal fragile mass remarkable for breaking up into 
a kind of parallelopiped, the upper end and two adjoining edges having an opposite 
magnetic polarity from the lower end and two other edges. 

Hydrous sesquisilicate of iron, Thraulite , Hisinyerite, Gillingite , a black nodule, 
powdering brownish yellow, conchoidal, splendent, opaque, brittle, not very heavy, 
giving out water before the blowpipe, fusing at the edges, becoming magnetic, con¬ 
tains 44.39 peroxide iron, 36.30 silica, 20.70 water (Hisinger; or 31. 50. 19. Kobell), 
the specimens not being free from magnetic pyrites. 4 Dana gives its composition 
as 34.9 per-4-23 6 protoxide iron, 29.7 silica, 11.8 water in one instance, varying in 
others. It belongs apparently to the variable hematized carbonate nodular ores. 
Achmite is a soda silicate crystal (in granite) of an earthy fracture, vitreous and 
translucent, scratching glass, and containing 4 atoms bisilicate iron-f-2 tersilicate 
soda-j-1 bisilicate manganese, lime, magnesia and alumina. 5 Crocidolite or the blue 
iron stone of the Cape of Good Hope , is both compact and asbestiform, lavender 
blue, opaque, elastic, hard 4, specific gravity 3.2, melting easily to a frothy glass, 
attracted, and distinguished from asbestos by each single hair melting readily when 
held to a spirit flame ; contains from 34 to 40 protoxide iron, 50 silica, 5 to 7 soda, 

8 § 239 which gives the best method -of analysis. » Dana, ii. 299. 

1 Thompson, i. 461. 2 Thompson, i. 462. 

8 Thompson, i. 464. Dana gives 40.5 peroxide+45.9 silica+ 13.7 water, relating it to 

the hydrous silicates of alumina, ii. 337. 4 Thompson i. 478. 5 Thompson, i. 480. 


IKON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


293 


3 to 6 water, 2.5 magnesia, 1.5 lime and a Iron and Phosphorus, 
trace of manganese. 6 Arfoedsonite, u ferruginous 

hornblende,” is a pure black, green edged, four-sided prism, containing 35.14 per¬ 
oxide iron, 50.50 silica, 8.92 sesquiox-mang. etc. 7 

Knebelite 8 is a grey spotted uneven glistening opaque hard brittle mass (3.714) 
infusible pure, fusible with borax to an olive green bead, 32 protoxide iron, 32.5 
silica, 35 protoxide manganese, or 1 silicate iron-j-1 silicate manganese.—A ferru¬ 
ginous tephroite , Dana. 

Pyrosmalite from Bjelke iron mine emits a strong odor of chlorine when heated 
before the blowpipe, a liver brown, internally light greenish yellow, splintery, 
pearly, translucent to opaque, rather brittle six-sided prism (4.5) (3.081) 35.48 
veroxide iron, 35.85 silica, 23.44 sesquioxide manganese, 3.76 chlorine, 3.60 water, 
1.21 lime. 9 

Cummingtonite, (an asbestiform tremolite , Dana) found at Cummington Massa¬ 
chusetts, is a grey white silky opaque bunch of diverging needles, infusible per se, 
(2.75) (3.2014) 21.67 protoxide iron, 56.54 silica, 7.80 protoxide manganese, 8.44 
soda, 3.18 water, the bases being in a state of tersilicates. 1 

Nontronite (chloropal, Dana) from the celebrated manganese beds of Peregueux, 
Dordogne, disseminated as nodules never pure, frangible irregular coated with man¬ 
ganese and mixed with yellow clay, polishing like serpentine; when pure straw- 
green, dull, unctuous, friable, (2), non-odorous, non-magnetic, 29 peroxide iron, 44 
silica, 18.7 water, 3.6 alumina, 2.1 magnesia, 1.2 clay. 2 

Polylile so called from its numerous constituents forms a bed \ inch thick in 
magnetic ore at Hoboken, New Jersey, consists of black plates, vitreous, splendent, 
brittle, (6.25) (3.231) infusible per se, fuses with borax slowly to a black trans¬ 
parent glass, 34.08 protoxide iron, 40.04 silica, 11.54 lime, 9.42 alumina, 6.6 pro¬ 
toxide manganese. 3 

Iron and Phosphorus unite in the reduction of phosphate 
of iron with coal at a brown red heat, or by heating to a bright 
red iron filings and phosphoric acid with coal. Glowing perox¬ 
ide of iron with a large quantity of phosphorus makes phosphate 
of iron in the form of slag. Pelletier is wrong (according to 
Karsten) in thinking he thus gets also phosphuret of iron. 
Phosphorus added in successive doses to iron filings kept at a 
red heat in a carefully covered crucible makes a pure phosphu¬ 
ret of iron, a very brittle, greyish white, fusible mass; unalter¬ 
able in close vessels and at a strong heat, (but, according to 
Pelletier, giving off phosphorus when heated to a glow in air in 
a muffle and remaining a peroxide of iron mixed doubtless with 
some phosphate of iron;) not magnetic and not attacked except 
bv boiling nitric and nitro-muriatic acids; the only determinate 

« Thompson, i. 480. 9 Thompson, i. 492. 3 Thompson, i, 496. 

7 Thompson, i. 481. 1 Thompson, i. 493. 

» Thompson, i. 484. 2 Thompson, i. 494. 



294 


PAHT II.-DIVISION I. 


union of the two substances known, consisting of 2 weights of 
iron (56) and 1 of phosphorus (16), or 77.14 iron + 22.86 phos¬ 
phorus. Phosphorus however seems to unite with iron in lower 
and variable quantities. This di-phosphuret has never yet been 
found in nature; but many-ores of iron are made cold short by 
the presence of the phosphate which coal ashes also and many 
earths contain, and therefore phosphorus is found in all iron and 
in very different relations. 

The perphosphuret of iron, 3 equivalents of iron (84) + 4 
of phosphorus (64)= 148) is obtained by the action of phos¬ 
phorus on persulphuret of iron at a moderate heat, and resem¬ 
bles the diphosphuret in its properties. 

Hie phosphate protoxide of iron forms a white, pulveru¬ 
lent precipitate, becoming blue in time in the air, as a supposed 
(but not proved) basic phosphate of the peroxide and phosphate 
of the proto-peroxide, occurring frequently in nature. The blue 
and white colors may be caused by water. Water does not 
dissolve the phosphate protoxide, but acids do easily (even 
acetic acid), and then dilution or an alkali will throw it down. 
Hence the prescription for ridding iron ore or a sulphate of iron 
of phosphoric acid, by dosing it with water and a little alkali 
and letting it stand; the white phosphate will gradually appear 
at the bottom, and afterwards turn blue ; but the quantity con¬ 
tained must not be too small; the processes good for nothing in 
quantitative analysis. 5 

Mullicite crystals from Mullica Hill in New Jersey, and from Brazil and Isle of 
France, are cylinders two inches long by half an inch in diameter, incrusted with 
yellowish red sand, which also occurs dispersed through the cylinders as if they 
were made of loose sand (of quartz tinged with iron), bluish black, opaque, splen¬ 
dent, vitreous and made up of needles radiating from the central axis, sectile, hard¬ 
ness 1, specific gravity 1.787, protoxide iron 42 65, phosphoric acid 24.00, water 25.00 
(2:1:4?), grains of quartz sand 7.90, making it a crystallized diphosphate. Vauque- 
lin’s analysis gives 2J atoms of water, and Berthier’s 2 instead of 4. 6 Anglarite has less 
phosphoric acid; Triphyline contains as much manganese as Iron, and some lithia. 

Phosphate of iron, Vivianite , fer phosphate , blue iron earth , hlaue eisenerz , 
eisenhlau , fer azure , glaukosiderit , eisenphyllit , mullicite, are names given to the 
same mineral by Dana, but Thompson makes four species of phosphated peroxide 
of iron, Diphosphate, Mullicite, Native prussian blue and Vivianite, in atomic pro¬ 
portions of protoxide of iron to phosphoric acid as follows: 2 : 1 1.66 : 1 1.5 : 1 
H : l, but he confesses that their analyses are attended with peculiar difficulties. 7 

Vivianite occurs in modified oblique crystals, cleaving well one way, and also 
radiated, kidney-shaped, globular or as a coating, deep blue to green, according as 

4 Pen. Cyc. 6 Karsten, § 226. 6 Thompson, i. 453. 7 Ibid. p. 454. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


295 


you regard the crystal, pearly or vitreous, trans- Iron and Phosphorus, 
lucent or transparent, becoming an opaque dingy 

indigo by exposure and before the blowpipe white, then melting to a black magnetic 
enamel, flexible when thin, hardness 1.5 to 2 with bluish streak, specific gravity 
2.66, composition protoxide iron 42.4, phosphoric acid 28.7, water 28.9 (Stromeyer 
says 41.2, 31.2, 27.5) dissolves in nitric acid and gives water in a tube. It is found 
with iron, copper, tin, sometimes in clay and in bog-iron ore, and often fills up the 
interior of fossils. B 

Subsesquiphosphate, blue iron earth, or native prussian blue occurs in nests in 
bog-iron ore and in mosses, as a greyish white earthy powder exposing to a smalt 
blue, slightly soils the hand, feels harsh, grows reddish brown before the blowpipe 
and makes a magnetic black globule, contains 43 to 47 protox. iron, 301o 32 phos. 
acid, 20 to 25 water. Rammelsborg makes some of the iron peroxide. 9 

The Phosphate peroxide of iron is precipitated from the protoxide salt by a 
phosphate alkali, also as a white powder which does not change blue, but when 
heated to a glow turns brown by losing part of its water. It dissolves very 
readily in the mineral acids and falls from them again by addition of alkalies. It is 
insoluble in water and vinegar. Infusible caustic alkalies turn it basic, when it out¬ 
wardly resembles peroxide of iron, and dissolves in mineral acids but not in vine¬ 
gar. An acid solution, containing phosphoric acid and peroxide iron in such 
relations as to form it, will drop a basic peroxide salt on addition of alkalies without 
retaining a trace of the acid. Even if the solution holds lime and the alkali used 
is corrosive sal ammoniac the acid still combines solely and wholly with the oxide 
and the lime remains dissolved. But if the protoxide instead of the peroxide be 
present the acid takes the lime and falls. 1 

Kraurite (green iron-stone), alluaudite , rnelanchbor , beraunite, are phosphates 
of the peroxide of different colors; Cacoxene" 1 contains alumina and radiates in 
beautiful tufts of yellow-brown, resembling Wavellite, and also Carpolite, and 
occurs with tertiary ores in Bohemia, and with primary ores at Stirling New 
Jersey; Carphosiderite is a kidney-shaped yellow phosphate from Greenland. 3 
Delvauxene is a rare waxy yellowish black or reddish earth composed of 35.80 per¬ 
oxide iron, 15.90 phosphoric acid, 48.3 water. Beraunite is altered vivianite found 
in limonite, foliated, radiated, hyacinth brown with ochre yellow streak, hydrous 
phosphate of peroxide iron. Dufrenite , Kraurite , griineisenstein, green iron ore is 
a silky radiated fibrous subtranslucent drusv ore, 63 peroxide iron, 28 phosphoric 
acid, 9 water. Carphosiderite is a kidney, resinous straw-yellow, greasy, phosphate 
of iron and manganese and zinc occurring in fissures in mica slate in Labrador. 
Cryptolite is a crystal of phosphate of cerium with only 1.5 per cent of iron ; 
Phosphocerite is identical with it, with twice as much iron ; in both the iron is 
accidentally present. Zwieselite, eisenapatit, is a greasy-looking, clove-brown, im¬ 
perfectly conchoidal fracture phosphate of iron (41.42) and manganese (23.25). 
Triphyline is a greenish grey subresinous semitranslucent phosphate of protoxide 
iron (49.16) manganese (4.75) and lithia (3.45); Tetraphyline , Pseudotriplite , Hete- 

s Dana, Manual, p. 229. 9 Dana and Thompson. 1 Karsten, § 226. 

3 Cacoxenite, childrenite , occurs also in carbonate clay-iron stones of the coal formation 
at the Hebetk mines in Bohemia and yielded to Steinmann 36.32 peroxide iron + 17.86 
phosphoric acid + 25.95 water and fluoric acid (with 8.90 silica, 10.00 alumina) ; but to 
Richardson 43.1 + 20.5 + 30.2 (with 2.1+ 1.1 lime, 0.9 magesia)=a diphosphated peroxide 
of iron + 6 atoms of water.— Thompson, i. 477. 3 Dana, Manual, p. 230. 


296 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


rositc, Hureaulitc , Alluaudite, Norwich mineral all come ui der the same head. 
Triplite or ferruginous phosphate of manganese , pitch-iron ore , eisenpecherz, 33.6 
protoxide iron, 33.2 phosphoric acid, 33.2 manganese, 4 occurs at Limoges in France 
in granite. 6 Hetopezite is a greyish green crystal becoming blue on exposure, 
foliated, hard enough to scratch glass, and containing 35.00 peroxide iron, 41.78 
phosphoric acid, 16.20 protoxide manganese, 4.40 water; or 2 atoms phosphate 
iron + 1 atom diphosphate manganese + 1 atom water. 6 

Phosphorus makes iron cold-short, but hastens its weld¬ 
ing or balling, and does not injure its quality at any grade of 
beat, but softens it, gives out at glow heat neither vapor nor 
odor, bflt diminishes its tenacity on cooling, 7 and the cold-short 
quality increases with the increase of phosphorus. Other ele¬ 
ments make iron cold-short, but phosphorus is undoubtedly the 
greatest and commonest cause ; yet if its influence over iron in 
this direction were as great as that of sulphur in the direction 
of the red-short evil, few lands could produce a firm and dura¬ 
ble iron. Karsten produced bar irons of all grades of cold short¬ 
ness out of raw iron made from meadow ore (bog ore) and found 
that 0.3 per cent of phosphorus produced not the least apparent 
diminution of tenacity ; the iron was of the very best and firm¬ 
est kind. Even with 0.5 bar iron bore the hammer test; but 
not with 0.6 ; even then it would bend at right angles and bear 
throwing over the anvil pretty well; at 0.66 it begins to show 
itself properly cold-short, but will still bear bending well up to 
0.75 ; many cracks appear at 0.8, and at 1.0 it will not bear 
bending to a right angle at all, and then like all other kinds of 
iron with 1.0 per cent of phosphorus is extraordinarily brittle 
and fit for very few purposes. Karsten never found a bar iron 
free from phosphorus ; but until the proportion reaches 0.50 no 
injury results. Seldom more than 0.05 per cent of phosphorus 
gets through raw into bar iron from ores which are not evidently 
mixed with phosphates of the salts of iron. What little does—- 
even up to 0.3 per cent—only seems to harden the iron without 
interfering with its tenacity in any observable degree. 8 

The cause of phosphorus making iron cold-short Meyer & 
Bergman first discovered. Treating cold-short ore or iron with 
concentrated sulphuric acid, washing and quietly cooling, they 
got a powder white or bluish, infusible, soluble in acids, decom- 

4 =1 + 1 + 1 atoms, or 1 atom diphosphate iron + 1 of diphosphate manganese_ 

Thompson. 

6 Dana. 8 Thompson, i. 474. 7 Karsten, §§ 184, 185, 186. 8 Karsten, §§ 187, 188. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


297 


posed by alkalies, smelting easier 


Iron and Phosphorus. 


than raw iron, and heated with coal 
giving water-iron (hyderosiderum) which when alloyed with 
malleable iron made it cold-short. Meyer, Klaproth and 
Sclieele discovered afterwards that water-iron was no new 
and separate metal, but that the white powder was a phos¬ 
phate, and Bergman found from 0.10 to 0.16 per cent of it in all 
the cold-short iron he tried. But Vauquelin still later showed 
that the use of sulphuric acid exhibited but a small part of the 
phosphorus present in cold short iron. Karsten’s experiments 
on raw iron led him to believe that 0.4 per cent of phosphorus 
was the maximum of the imperceptible loss of tenacity; even 
0.5 making its weakness very apparent, when dashed upon an 
anvil. Although phosphoric acid is common in the brown and 
yellow iron-stone ores of all formations and other ores to a less 
degree, and in combination with lime (as in apatite), its passage 
into pig and bar iron would not be to be feared if it acted like 
sulphur ; 9 but it does not; not a trace of it is to be found in the 
furnace slag; the whole of the phosphoric acid passes over as 
phosphorus into the iron, as Karsten showed in 1827 and as the 
French chemists afterwards acknowledged. Ores therefore with 
a considerable mixture of phosphate oxides or phosphoric acid 
should be as much as possible avoided. On the other hand 
phosphorus (unlike sulphur) goes for the most part into slag 
with the oxide of iron in remelting pig metal in open hearths 
with a strong blast; refined-iron holds therefore less phospho¬ 
rus (and more sulphur) than raw iron. 1 


The threefold union of iron, carbon and phosphorus is very 
uncertainly understood. Carbon and phosphorus are not known 
to unite. An overdose of phosphorus, like an overdose of sul¬ 
phur, seems to arrest the characteristic influence of carbon on 
iron. A quantity insufficient to prevent the usual modification 
of the iron by the carbon only makes the carbonized iron more 
fusible ; brings bar iron and steel sooner to a weld and yet does 
not destroy malleability (owing perhaps to the fact that phos¬ 
phor-iron holds heat better than sulphur-iron), especially at a 
very high heat, but shows its cold-short influence afterwards. 

9 As described in Karsten, § 181'. 

1 Karsten, §§ 189, 190. In 191 lie gives the method of analysis. 


298 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


Raw iron phosphorus makes quicker melt, quieter flow and 
slower cool; thinner, and therefore better adapted for hollow 
ware casting. Phosphorus for the same reason also opposes the 
production of the graphite form of carbon in raw iron even 
more than sulphur does. Ores which contain apparently no 
phosphorus will make raw iron containing at least 0.2 phospho¬ 
rus. Karsten’s highest percentage in raw iron made from bog 
ore was 5.6; not high enough to show the maximum when raw 
iron ceases to be useful for castings. Phosphor-iron is disposed 
to come out of the cupola white instead of grey, and therefore it 
requires in remelting a high cupola. 2 

Iron and Sulphur unite readily and rapidly. Sulphur en 
ables iron to melt at a strong red heat. Equal parts kept melted 
in a covered vessel for some time make a perfect alloy attracted 
by the magnet. Various mixtures of sulphur and iron can be 
obtained according to the different grades of .temperature em¬ 
ployed. The less the sulphur the higher must be the heat. 
Two direct specific unions are recognized. Others are made by 
reducing sulphate of iron with carbon or hydrogen, or by reduc¬ 
ing oxide of iron by sulphuretted hydrogen. Determinate alloys 
occur in nature, and others which are supposed to be mixtures 
of these alloys in different proportions. Arfoedson says that an 
alloy of 4 weights of iron with 1 of sulphur is got by heating 
to a glow in a glass tube in a stream of hydrogen the basic sul¬ 
phate of the peroxide of iron—as a black grey powder, becoming 
metallic by rubbing against hard bodies, and magnetic, giving 
out 7 parts hydrogen and 1 sulphuretted hydrogen when dis¬ 
solved in acids and containing according to Berzelius 93.1 iron 
+ 6.9 sulphur. He obtained another alloy of 1 to 1, by heating 
anhydrous sulphate of the protoxide of iron in a stream of sul¬ 
phuretted hydrogen—as a magnetic powder containing 77.13 
iron + 22.97 sulphur. Karsten found in the Gleivitz furnace- 
slags some slightly magnetic crystals of sulphuret of manganese 
+ sulphuret of iron, both metals combined with equal weights 
of sulphur. Berzelius describes a third alloy of 1 to 3, produced 
when pure anhydrous peroxide of iron is kept at 212° in a 
stream of sulphuretted hydrogen until steam is no longer pro- 


2 Karsten, §§ 198, 199, 200. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


299 


duced—-grey, yellowish, polishing bright, ^ and 

lixecl m air, distilling into the last men- 

tioned alloy of 1 to 1, and consisting of 52.9 iron + 4T.1 sulphur. 

The Protosulphuret of Iron so called, is a union of iron 
with sulphur (1 to 2), obtained by melting iron and sulphur 
together and by various chemical reactions, as a yellow magnetic 
mass, consisting of 62.77 iron + 37.23 sulphur. It has not yet 
been found in nature pure, but is tolerably well represented by 
the so called magnetic pyrites, and very nearly approached 
by the pyrites found in coal mines, which deflagrates in moist 
air so rapidly, producing vitriol, and evolving heat enough 
sometimes to tire the coal. Magnetic pyrites in nature, is vari¬ 
ously composed, being in fact a variable mixture of true or arti¬ 
ficial magnetic pyrites (1: 2) with the bisulphuret or Iron Pyrites 
(1:4). It therefore corresponds with the natural magnet or mix¬ 
ture of the protoxide and peroxide of iron. Stromeyer found in 
a Treseburg specimen 59.85 iron + 40.15 sulphur, which w T ould 
be a mixture of one part sulphuret and six parts bisulphuret. 
Another from Bareges gave 56.375 -f- 43.625 = one part sul¬ 
phuret + two parts bisulphuret. Bose found in the beautiful 
leafy magnetic pyrites from Bodenmais 60.52 + 38.72 ( + 0.82 
alumina) = very nearly a pure sulphuret. Schaftgotscli found 
in the same ore 60.59 + 39.41. This mixture of two alloys can 
sometimes be perceived on the very face of the crystals. Ber- 
thollet’s idea that the iron and sulphur varied their proportions 
infinitely has not found credence. 3 


Magnetic pyrites occurs in beds along with other minerals containing iron; exists 
accidentally in rocks and crystallizes in their fissures, sometimes in irregular six- 
sided prisms, cleaving regularly six-sided; occurs often tabular; color between 
bronze yellow and copper red, scratching dark greyish black, brittle, with a hard¬ 
ness of 3.5 to 4.5 (5 to 6 of Thompson scratches calcspar and is scratched by feld¬ 
spar) and a specific gravity of 4.6 to 4.65 (4 631 Thompson), slightly attracted by 
the magnet, soon tarnishing ; its hue, softness and magnetism distinguish it from 
iron pyrites and its paleness from copper pyrites; it becomes red oxyd in the outer 
flame, fuses and glows in the inner flame to a black globule breaking yellow which 
is magnetic, whereas nickel and cobalt yield a globule non-magnetic. Dana and 
Thompson give several analyses varying between 63 50 and 56.37 iron + 36.50 and 
43.63 sulphur, and the difference is to be accounted for by the difference in the 
proportions of the two sulphurets. Boye’s analysis of a Pennsylvanian nickeliferous 
variety of the ore was 41.34 iron + 24.84 sulphur + 4.55 nickel + 1.30 copper. 4 


3 Karsten, §§ 173, 176. 


4 Dana’s System, p. 50 ; Thompson, i. 441. 


300 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


Powdered sulphur and iron filings sprinkled with water heat, even to flaming, and 
mix. forming an undetermined sulphuret and a sulphate of iron. Iron withdraws 
to itself sulphur from its combination with most other metals and is therefore used 
in the reduction of galena, sulphuret of silver, cinnabar (zinnober), 5 etc. 

The close relationship of iron to sulphur even in the smallest 
quantities affects in the most important manner the qualities of 
bar iron, steel and pig metal, converting them to a fusible, brit¬ 
tle, untenacious mass. Hence sulphurous ores must be worked 
with extreme care and must often be wholly rejected. An al¬ 
most imperceptible quantity of sulphur in an analysis will make 
iron red-short, whereas it requires a very measurable quantity 
of other elements to produce the same effect. The degree of 
red-shortness is according to the amount of sulphur, and the 
lowest degrees are not to be dreaded because they are commonly 
coincident with firmness or tenacity; but the higher degrees 
make iron every way worthless. The minimum is still unknown, 
because of the difficulties of the analysis when the percentage 
of sulphur runs down into the decimal places. Karsten endea¬ 
vored to obtain the maximum of sulphur in a good forge metal 
by mixing gypsum with puddling iron, to an analytical propor¬ 
tion of only 0.03375 per cent of sulphur, when the iron was ut¬ 
terly unable to bear the hammer or weld. In a firm and good 
bar iron which however was called red-short because of its 
imperfect malleability and its disposition to edge cracks, he 
found by analysis 0.01 or one part of sulphur in ten thousand 
of iron. Stengel’s results are different, for he found 0.03 sul¬ 
phur in iron not sensibly red-short, and that it required 0.1 to 
make it worthless. This difference however may have originated 
in the different determinations of weight of the galena. Kar- 
sfen’s experiments when repeated with great care assured him 
that the medium bar iron of commerce never contained more 
than 0.008 per cent sulphur. It is a happy circumstance for 
metallurgists that the greatest part of the sulphur in ores passes 
off' in the furnace slag on account of the ease with which the 
union of iron and sulphur is dissolved by lime. Yery sulphur¬ 
ous ores afford a pig iron of little value to the refiner ; for the 
remelting of pig iron in cupola or in open fires scarcely dimin¬ 
ishes its percentage of sulphur, and rather increases it if coke 
instead of charcoal be the fuel; and as a rule when iron is 


5 Karsten, §§ 176, 7, 8. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


301 


refined or grey iron is converted to _ , „ , , 

i •, ° / . -i ,, Iron and Sulphur. 

white with coke in open hearths with 

a strong blast, the refined iron will be found to contain more 
sulphur than the grey iron contained at first. It is impro¬ 
bable that so slight a quantity should be a fixed chemical 
proportion and still more improbable that it should be a 
union of the little sulphur with the whole mass of iron. Iron 
long exposed to stone-coal flames imbibes sulphur and becomes 
red-short, that is, becomes more brittle and fusible, as engine 
boilers burst in the lapse of time by being weakened from the 


same cause. 


Per- or Bisulphuret of iron, or common iron pyrites martial pyrites , cubic 
pyrites, mundic , marcasite , schwefclkies , eisenfcies, fer sulphur e, is the per- or 
highest sulphuret known, consisting of 1 weight of iron with 4 weights of sulphur. 
It is obtained by rubbing the artificial sulphuret with half its weight of sulphur and 
distilling olf the residue in an under brown-red glow heat,—as a dark yellow metal¬ 
lic, voluminous powder, consisting of 45.74 iron + 54.26 sulphur, unattacked by 
any acids except nitric and nitro-muriatic. With nitric acid it deposits sulphur and 
becomes sulphate of peroxide of iron. Heated in close vessels to a glow, it sends 
off sulphur and becomes magnetic pyrites. Heated in air to a glow it becomes pure 
red peroxide of iron. Berzelius obtained this alloy by heating between 212° F. and 
a red heat, in a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen, peroxide of iron, hydrated per¬ 
oxide of iron (artificial or natural in powder or crystal) and spathic iron ore (in 
powder or crystal). The resulting crystals were perfect pseudomorphs. The bisul¬ 
phuret is very common in nature either pure or with other sulphurets. It is in fact 
universally diffused; its home is in clay slate, in beds and crystals; in greenstone 
and granular limestone it is nodular; 7 in coal-beds and in coal slates it abounds 
[especially in the lowest beds of the system and in the western States, apparently 
increasing with its distance west; it takes the form of plants and shells obliterating 
usually all but the grosser markings, and often being the sole indication of the pre¬ 
vious existence of fucoidal vegetation in sandstone, when palaeozoic and metamor¬ 
phosed.] Its pure crystals belong to the sphaeroidal system, are metallic yellow and 
strike fire with steel. The cockscomb pyrites (Kammkies) which differs so curiously 
and inexplicably from it in easily weathering to vitriol has nevertheless according 
to Berzelius the same composition, viz.: 45.07 iron + 53.35 sulphur (+ 0.80 alumina 
+ 0.70 manganese). 8 

The bisulphuret of iron cannot be converted into the sulphuret, and still less into 
regulus iron by heating with hydrogen. Regnault affirms that when watery vapor 
is directed over the glowing bisulphuret magnetic oxide results with evolution of 
hydrogen and sulphuretted hydrogen gases. This is in fact the process for obtain¬ 
ing the sulphur of commerce from pyrites. Stromeyer finds that the bisulphuret 
must be dry distilled at a higher temperature than a full red heat to make the 
pure or artificial magnetic pyrites; for at merely a full red heat it makes the 
natural or compound magnetic pyrites, 60 iron + 40 sulphur; and this corresponds 
Aith the iron + oxygen compound described as red-heat-crust (gliihspan). 


6 Karsten, § 179 to 182. § 183 gives the methods of analyses for sulphur. 

7 Thompson, i. p. 442. 8 Karsten, §§ 174, 175. 


302 


rART II.-DIVISION I. 


Iron pyrites crystals when broken across are often mis¬ 
taken for silver and for gold, the lustre being splendent 
metallic whitish or bronze yellow, but the scratch or streak 
shows brownish black and the mass is brittle, hardness 6 to 6.5, 
scratching glass and too hard to be cut with a knife and thus 
distinguished from copper pyrites, silver and gold, specific grav¬ 
ity 4.8 to 5.1, striking fire with steel, 0 giving off sulphur before 
the blowpipe and leaving a magnetic globule. Sometimes a 
minute quantity of gold is present. Frequently the pyrites 
crystals of iron are mixed with those of copper, or lead, or zinc. 
The great veins or beds of Polk county Tennessee are double 
sulphurets of copper and iron. It is distinguishable by its yel¬ 
lowish color from silver ores, which are steel grey or nearly 
black, easily cut and quite fusible; while gold ores are easily 
cut 5nd hammered out and give no sulphur odor before the 
blowpipe. Magnificent crystals are obtained in many well- 
known localities catalogued in Dana’s Manual, p. 213. 

The white iron pyrites or Marcasite does not differ in 
composition from the yellow but crystallizes in secondary forms, 
is as hard, a little lighter and more liable to decomposition. 
Radiated, hepatic, cockscomb, spear, cellular pyrites are only 
varieties of form. 1 They are called in Europe Strahlkies , 
Leberkies, Kammkies , Speerkies, Zell kies, Spdrkies, Rhombischer 
eisenkies, T Yeiss-kupfererz and Kyrosite (when it contains arsenic 
of copper), fer aciculaire, fer radie, fer sulfure blanc, etc. 
Wasserkies contains water in combination. Lonchidite or Kau- 
simkies is a variety of Marcasite. This white bisulpliuret is 
much less abundant than the common pyrites and occurs most 
commonly in coal-beds, but also in silver, lead and copper veins. 
Its primary form is a right rhombic prism, but its usual secondary 
form is one which at first sight seems to have 12 faces, but is 
really made up of parts of five distinct crystals. It is half a 
number softer than common pyrites and at least 0.15 less specific 
gravity although of the same composition. 2 

Iron and sulphuric acid at ordinary temperatures unite only in proportion 
as the sulphuric acid is diluted with water; but at boiling heat the iron begins 
to decompose the acid into sulphurous acid and oxygen. Both oxides are 
dissolved by the concentrated acid at boiling point; the protoxide easiest. 

9 Hence its Greek name fromp^r, fire ; Pliny says “ it has much fire in it.” 

1 Dana’s Manual and System, p. 214 and p. 55, GO. 2 Thompson, i. 443. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


303 


The diluted acid acts violently at this temperature, Iron and Sulphur, 
evolving sulphuretted hydrogen, and dissolves the 

protoxide easily, but the peroxide with difficulty. Jones tried to bore and cut 
hardened steel by means of this active agent, covering it with wax, exposing the 
line of section, pouring on the acid diluted with six times its weight of water and 
breaking the bar or plate after half an hour. 3 The salts of both oxides are white, 
and when dissolved in water are precipitated by concentrated sulphuric acid, the 
one (protoxide) as granular, and the other (peroxide) as needle-shaped, exceedingly 
insoluble in water, especially now the protoxide, which before was so soluble. 4 It 
is the neutral green vitriol , 25.43 protoxide iron + 29.01 sulphuric acid + 45.46 
water ; almost exactly the relation of iron and sulphur in the magnetic pyrites (63 + 
37). Hence pyrites is the basis of the artificial manufacture of iron or green vitriol. 
Pure sulphate of the protoxide is dark green blue and covers itself in air with a 
yellow basic peroxide powder. Dissolved vitriol in free air and especially when 
heated with nitric acid deposits this peroxide fast. (These changes are important 
in reasoning on the production of bog ores and rock deposits, and in explaining 
the colors of rocks which are produced almost all of them by the salts of iron espe¬ 
cially the sulphur salts.) Superfluous acid retards the process The double salt 
deposits emerald green crystals from a mixture of the bluish protoxide salt and 
yellow peroxide salt. In heating, the vitriol melts, throws off its water of crystalli¬ 
zation, then sulphurous acid gas, and precipitates basic sulphate of peroxide, which 
further heated continues the exhalations and becomes pure red peroxide, colcothar 
or English red. The sulphate peroxide brown solution is the vitriolic mother lye, 
so called, and contains still much sulphate protoxide. The sulphate peroxide of 
iron is yellowish red, very soluble in water and alcohol, and dries to 39.42 oxide + 
60.58 acid. The basic sulphate peroxide is yellow, but turns red when its water is 
driven off by heat; analyzing yellow 62.4 oxide + 15.9 acid + 217 water; red 
79.61 oxide + 20 39 acid. 5 

A bed of iron pyrites, in the north of Chili, South America, about 15 miles 
from Copiapo, dividing fusible feldspar rock like fine grained granite, has decom¬ 
posed (probably) into a bed of bisulphated peroxide of iron, white, partly crystal¬ 
line, partly granular, soluble in water and precipitating in hot water peroxide of 
iron, and composed of sulphuric acid 43.55, peroxide iron 24.11, water 30.10 
(=2: 2 :: 5), and a little silica, alumina, lime and manganese. The people have dug 
into this bed for their own use 20 feet deep. 6 The sulphated peroxide is generally 
found incrusting the previous salt, in small grains covered with minute crystals, 
yellow, translucent, pearly, mixed with sand and containing sulph. acid 39.60, 
perox. 26.11, water 29.67 ( = 1:1:: 5), magnesia, alumina, silica, 2.64, 1.95, 1.37. 

The shales of the wrought out coal beds of Hurlet and Campsie near Glasgow- 
contained innumerable snow-white needles of alumina sulphate of iron an inch 
long, of some breadth but no sensible thickness, astringent, sweet, soluble, redden¬ 
ing when heated and containing 3^ atoms sulphate of iron + 1 atom sulphate of 
alumina + 34 atoms water on one analysis, and other proportions of the same on 
other analyses. 7 

A 

3 Bulletin de la Soc. d’Encouragement pour l’industrie nationale, Nov. 1837 ; p. 456 in 
Karsten. 4 Karsten, § 220. 

a Karsten, §§ 220, 221. He treats the action of sulphurous acid on iron shortly in 
§ 222; nitric in § 223; muriatic in § 224; aqua regia in § 225. 8 Thompson, p. 450. 

7 Thompson, p. 473, i. 


304 


PART rr.—DIVISION I. 


How Carbon and Sulphur modify each other’s influence over 
iron is not well known. Grey iron that contains both dissolves 
quickly in sulphuric acid and gives out sulph. hydrogen, but 
white iron slowly, and not until heated. Much sulphur entirely 
neutralizes the action of carbon, or in other words apparently 
confounds bar, steel, grey and white iron in plain sulphur-iron 
without regard to the quantity of carbon they may hold; 
although it is inadmissible to. suppose the carbon made abso¬ 
lutely passive and uncombined with the iron in either the form 
of graphite or of distributed carbon, at least up to the (at present 
unknown) point of saturation with sulphur. Scheele shows that 
graphite and sulphur cannot unite, but that carbon and sulphur 
can make a carburet. It is not likely that this union is effected 
in the body of the iron, seeing that although sulphur neutralizes 
coal in iron, coal cannot neutralize sulphur in iron; and when 
specular (white) pig metal is melted in a close crucible with sul¬ 
phur, its carbon comes out in the form of a fine soot over its 
under surface; a soot having all the qualities of graphite, hard 
to burn, evaporating without residue under the muffle, but with¬ 
out lustre. Probably this soot is driven off from only that part 
of the iron which is saturated with sulphur. In another experi¬ 
ment melted grey iron poured upon sulphur separated into 
sulphur iron above and pure iron below which remained behind, 
when the sulphur iron was poured off from its surface, as a 
specular raw iron. The original grey iron held 3.9372 carbon 
(of which 3.3119 was graphite); the iron poured off held 0.0286 
sulphur; and the remaining specular flake iron held 5.4878 car¬ 
bon (not graphite) and 0.4464 sulphur. It would appear that 
the iron made sulphur-iron took up a maximum equivalent of 
carbon, and then the iron not made sulphur-iron took its maxi¬ 
mum, after which graphite began to form. The greater part 
of the iron remained behind ; but not always as white iron, but 
occasionally as -grey iron, doubtless an accident of high tempe¬ 
rature. The extra percentage of carbon in the residue or non- 
transmuted mass is curious. Grey iron containing 3.8594 carbon 
(of which 0.5943 was combined carbon, i. e. not graphite) 
smelted and poured over sulphur, and poured off again, left 
perfect grey iron containing 5.6212 (of which 1.1085 was 
combined) carbon. 8 Fournet maintains that carbon can re- 


8 Karsten, §§ 192, 193. 


IKON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


305 


Iron and Sulphur. 

says liis sulphur-iron remained for hours witn coal at the 
strongest white heat without change, except taking up some 
more carbon and becoming soft. 9 When carbonized iron 
receives sulphur, but too little to neutralize and conceal the 
presence of the carbon, it grows more fusible thereby ; bar iron 
and steel take a welding heat at a lower temperature than when 
pure, but do not weld so well, probably because sulphurous 
iron is too fusible at a white glow. As sulphurous iron becomes 
fluid at a lower temperature and chills quicker, so red-short iron 
and steel pass quickly from a white to a red glow, and this 
obviates the connection of the particles and produces the cold¬ 
short quality, which shows itself in a low degree by edge 
cracking and in a great degree by crumbling under the sledge 
because of a want of weld. On account of these corner cracks 
and fissures bar iron and steel which are red-short in the highest 
degree must also be cold-short. Haw iron shows the influence 
of sulphur still more strongly because of its quicker and hotter 
flow and quicker chill, giving the particles still less chance to 
arrange themselves firmly, which is the secret cause of the 
weakness of the iron. Sulphur here acts to thin the metal at a 
lower temperature, and therefore to facilitate chilling; it pre¬ 
vents therefore the formation of graphite (which can only take 
place at a high and slowly falling heat) and favors the chemical 
connection of the carbon and the iron. Hence the difficulty in 
getting any but white iron from any sulphurous grey iron or 
ore, either in the high furnace or in the refinery. Evain of 
Metz first pressed a hole through red-hot iron with a stick of 
sulphur, and supposed he had discovered an easy method 
of making holes through iron instantly and of any required 
shape, but the action is not quite regular and the result can 
seldom look workmanlike. The iron must be at a full white 
heat. At a low red heat the sulphur vapors off without attack¬ 
ing the iron. Steel is more vulnerable than bar iron, because 
it takes a glow quicker; but no effect at all is produced on pig 
iron, white or grey, because the carbon cannot be driven off 
except from fluid or molten iron and therefore the sulphur has 


tort and drive out some sulphur from 
a saturated sulphur-iron, but Karsten 


9 Karsten, § 194, quoting Annales des Mines 3, serie iv. 1,225. 

20 



306 


PAUT II.-DIVISION I. 


no chance to form a union; and moreover pig iron actually 
melts before reaching the high white heat necessary for this 
instantaneous combination with sulphur. A small quantity of 
sulphur in raw iron thickening its flow when not heated much 
above melting point makes it porous and vescicular. In a raw 
iron experimented on (as recounted above) Karsten found but 
0.371 sulphur, and yet it made an extraordinarily red-short bar. 
Coke-pig varied in Karsten’s experiments between 0.005 and 
0.080 sulphur; and cliarcoal-pig varied equally, but its whole 
average was lower, when the same ores were used for making 
both the coke and the charcoal-pig. The difference of fuel sinks 
into insignificance in this respect before the difference in the 
ores. 1 

Iron and Selenium so seldom meet in ores that nothing is 
known of their relations. 2 They combine as iron 1 (28) + selenium 
1 (40=68) when iron filings and selenium are heated together, 
forming a greyish yellowish hard brittle alloy, losing selenium 
before the blowpipe, and decomposed by hot hydrochloric acid 
into protochloride iron -f- seleniuretted hydrogen. 3 

Iron and Tellurium have unknown relationships. 4 


Iron and Arsenic unite in all proportions making a brittle, 
hard and fusible alloy. To destroy the magnetism of iron at 
least an equal portion of arsenic is needful. Bergman’s experi¬ 
ment exonerated arsenic in small quantities from the charge 
of exerting any malign influence over iron ; but repeated smelt¬ 
ing even with coal dust will not entirely drive off the arsenic. 
Rinman maintains on the contrary that a very little arsenic will 
destroy the forge quality of iron. Hassenfratz found that arsen- 
iuretted iron forges pretty w r ell at a red heat but welds badly, 
giving out strong onion odors and acting more red than cold¬ 
short afterwards. Karsten’s own experiments showed him that 
the addition of arsenic gave the puddling an extraordinary raw¬ 
ness, lengthening out the process two or three times, and wast¬ 
ing the iron greatly through the uncommon fluidity and heat of 
the slag. The iron was considerably harder than common and 
hammered like steel, but showed itself not in the least red-short, 


1 Karsten, §§ 195,196, 197. 


2 Karsten, § 201. 


3 Pen. Cyc. 


4 Karsten, § 273. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


307 


Iron and Arsenic. 


and. made no scale or corner cracks. 

But it had lost in tenacity somewhat as 
subsequent strain tests showed. A very careful analysis 
showed no trace of arsenic, and gave no explanation of a 
curiously diminished solubility in aqua regia in the case of 
this bar iron. Lambadius mentions a rich red iron ore smelted 
at the Breitenhof works in Saxony to an iron which would not 
weld in the puddling at all, and was found to contain 3.5 per¬ 
cent arsenic. Garnej remarks that some of the IJto ore gives a 
very cold-short iron, partly owing to arsenic and partly to co¬ 
balt. Karsten goes on to say that among the many kinds of pig 
metal he has had to examine he has never found one holding 
arsenic. Wohler on the other hand remarks that arsenic occurs 
in iron oftener than people suspect, even when made from ores 
which show no arsenic ; that it is easy to overlook in an analysis 
by not looking for it in the right place, because it does not pass 
off w T ith the sulphuric acid, nor with the hydrogen, nor in the 
solution of iron, 6 but remains as an arsenical salt in the black 
residuum composed of coal, clay, etc., and may be exhibited by 
caustic potash lye or sulphur-ammonia, and precipitated by 
acids as sulphur-arsenic, which if again distilled in a glass tube 
leaves a black residuum *of sulphur-molybdenum. In this he 
had found arsenic in four specimens of pig metal from as many 
different iron works. Berthier analyzed Algerian bombs and 
balls supposed to have been cast in Spain and found them to 
contain 9.8 per cent arsenic and 1.5 carbon. The iron of the 
bombs was brilliant and showed white grey specular flakes, 
very brittle, easily pulverized and as heavy specifically as 7.585. 
That of the balls was even greater, 7.65, contained 27 per cent 
Arsenic, and was full of holes. Both kinds oxidized rapidly in 
air when moistened, and the oxide dissolved in nitric acid preci¬ 
pitated carbon and arseniuret of iron, retaining itself no trace of 
the same, showing that no arseniate of the oxide of iron had been 
formed. Karsten smelted together 95 parts cement-steel with 
5 parts arsenic-metal (32 arsenic + 68 iron) making the arsenic 
1.6 per cent (the reactions due to the carbon being considered). 
The steel melted quickly, looked homogeneous, was very soft, 


5 That is when heated ; but if the dissolution is carefully made cold , and the filtered 
solution alone heated the arsenic will be found in the white precipitate of arseniate of 
the oxide of iron. 


308 


PART II.- DIVISION I. 


and could not be much hardened by tempering, acted like mel¬ 
low raw bar iron, had a blue green color and seemed to have 
entirely lost its toughness and ductility. Bar iron 75 and the 
same arsenic metal 25, mixed, melted quickly to a soft light 
fusible unmalleable dark grey alloy containing 8 per cent ar¬ 
senic. It follows that arsenic lessens materially the tenacity of 
iron, makes it softer, and as little as 1.6 per cent destroys its 
ductility and malleability, and therefore what has been said 
above at the beginning of this paragraph does not make it quite 
certain that even very small amounts of arsenic may not make 
iron cold-short. 6 

The hydrous diarseniate of iron, white iron sinter, found near Freiburg is a 
yellowish grey, kidney ore, soft, friable, coarse earthy, adhering to the tongue, dull, 
rough, containing 40.45 peroxide iron, 30.25 arsenic acid, 28.50 water, with traces 
of sulphuric acid, =2 + 1 + 6 atoms. 7 

The hydrous subsesqui-arseniate of iron, cube iron ore, hexahedral liricone 
malachite , wurfelerz , pharmacosiderite , fer arseniate , occurs in copper veins in 
primary rocks, in great abundance in Cornwall, frequent elsewhere, always in olive 
green (sometimes grass and emerald green, yellowish brown and yellowish red) 
crystals, of cubic primary form, adamantine lustre, translucent edges, rather sectile, 
hardness 2.5, specific gravity 3.000, growing red in a gentle heat, intumescing 
when hot to a red powder, emitting fumes before the blowpipe and melting to a 
magnetic scoria; contains 39.20 peroxide iron, 37.82 arsenic acid, 18.61 water, 
(2.53 phosphoric acid, 1.76 insoluble, 0.65 copper,) =1 + 1+3.5 atoms.* 

Dana gives a somewhat different analysis from Thompson, to wit, 28.1 + 12.6 
per + protoxide iron, 40.4 arsenic acid, 18.9 water. Brudantite is perhaps a very 
impure sulphurous variety of cube ore. 9 

Arseniosiderite , Arsenocrocite, nearly of this composition (40.52 + 39.37) but con¬ 
tains less water (8.23) and moreover lime (11.88), occurs as fibrous golden yellowish 
brown concretions in a manganese bed at Romaneche in France. 1 

Scorodite 2 found first in the Tin-croft mine in Cornwall and afterwards in primary 
rocks in Saxony and in Brazil, is a whitish or sky blue, leek green or brownish 
vitreous, translucent, brittle crystal of 36.25 protoxide iron + 31.4 arsenious acid 
+ 18 water, with protoxide manganese, lime, magnesia and sulphuric acid, therefore 
= 4 atoms subsesqui-arsenite iron + 1 atom subsesqui-arsenite manganese, etc. 3 

Hydrated arseniate of iron, 24.5 peroxide iron, 50 00 arsenic acid, 16.00 water 
(=1 + 1 + 2 atoms), occurs in the cellules of a silicious perhydrate of iron at Antonia 
Pareira, Villa Rica, Brazil, as a pale porous mass, powdering white. 4 

The sesqui-arseniate of iron, leucopyrite , glanzarsenic kies , arseneisen , arsenikci- 
sen, arsenicalkies, arsenosiderit, lolingite, mohsiue , 27.2 iron, 72.8 arsenic, ( = 1 + 
1.5,) contains sometimes as much as 2.20 sulphur; one specimen reads 13.50 + 
60.40-f-5.20 sulphur -j- 13.37 nickel -f- 5.10 cobalt. Mohs determined it as Oxoto- 
mon’s arsenical pyrites. Hitherto it has only been found with sparry iron ore or 


Karsten, §§ 268, 269. 
Thompson, i. 457. 
Thompson, i. 457. 


9 Dana, ii. 423. 

1 Dana, ii. 422. 

2 From GKoyodov garlic. 


Thompson, i. 476 ; Dana, 
ii. 419. 

Thompson, i. 458. 


IRON IS A CHEMICAL AGENT. 


309 


imbedded in serpentine, of which Hoffman’s spe- Iron and Antimony, 
cimen had 2.17. It is a silver white or steel 

grey opaque brittle octahedron, hardness 5 to 5.5, specific gravity 7.228. 6 Metallic 
arsenic sublimes in a glass tube; on charcoal, fumes and makes a magnetic globule; 
dissolves in nitric acid. A crystal weighing two or three ounces is said to have been 
found in Bedford county Pennsylvania, and a mass of two pounds in Randolph 
county North Carolina. 6 

Iron, Arsenic and Sulphur form arsenical pyrites, mis- 
pickel or prismatischer arsenikkies , fer arsenical , danaite , 
plinian , arsenopyrite , mcircasite , in the proportion 34.4 + 46.0 
+ 19.6 (=1 + 1 + 1 atoms). In some specimens cobalt is 
present to the extent of 9.00. It is found commonly in beds 
and veins in crystalline or metamorphic rocks, with silver, lead 
and tin, iron and copper pyrites and blende, and in serpentine. 
Dr. Genth has lately disco v^red it to he among the richest of 
all gold ores in South Carolina. It occurs in veins at Freiburg 
and Munzig Germany, Funaberg Sweden, in Cornwall, and 
elsewhere; in fine silver-white or steel-grey metallic brittle 
crystals at Franconia New Hampshire and many other places 
through New England, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. 

Glaucodut contains much sulphur and cobalt. 7 Before the blow-pipe it gives off 
copious arsenical vapors and the crystal becomes magnetic. 

The double salt sulpharseniate of iron , eisensinter , pittizite , pitchy iron ore 
(Thompson) was first described by Karsten and analyzed by Klaproth. Stromeyer 
thought it decomposed mispickel because they abounded together in Saxony. It is 
a grey or black-brown mass or incrustation, streak lemon yellow, fracture flat con- 
choidal or fine grained, resinous, shining translucent at the edges, scratched by the 
knife, brittle, specific gravity 2.40 and composed of 33.10 peroxide iron + 26.10 
arsenic acid + 10.00 sulphuric acid + 29.20 water and a little sesquioxide of man¬ 
ganese ; or 1J atoms arsen. perox. + 1 subsesquisulphated perox. + 12! water. 8 

Arsenical iron in a bed form, one to four inches wide and at least 328 feet in 
length occurs in granite and mica slate in Jackson county New Hampshire and 
where this bed is cut by a trap dyke Dr. C. T. Jackson’s celebrated tin crystals 
with copper pyrites, tinged with tungstate of manganese and iron was discovered. 
The copper pyrites is a bisulphuret of copper and iron. Iron pyrites is disseminated 
through the rock and oxide of iron occurs. Daubree supposed the oxide tin in all 
veins to have come from the interior of the earth as a gaseous fluoride, and speaks 
of the volcanic exhalation of chloride of iron lining the fissures and caverns of lava 
currents with specular oxide of iron ; the chloride of iron being converted by 
steam into chlorohydric acid and this oxide. 9 

Iron and Antimony mix in all proportions to make a hard, 
brittle white alloy, the iron gaining fusibility and the antimony 
hardness. Ivarsten experimented at the Creuzberg works in 

6 Thompson, i. 443. 6 Dana, ii. 62. 7 Dana, ii. 63. 

8 Thompson, i. 478. 9 Trans. Ass. Amer. Geol. and Nat. 1840-1842, p. 316. 


310 


PART II.—DIVISION I. 


CJpper Silesia with 1 per cent of antimony, which was found to 
exert a much more injurious influence on pig metal in the pud¬ 
dling furnace than so much tin. Under the weld-heat the same 
tin smell was perceptible, but the bar iron was far brittler, 
breaking with the greatest ease not only when cold but also 
when hot. Hassenfratz’s experiments with spiesglam (antimony 
ore) showed in like manner that it made iron very hard to forge, 
and both red- and cold-short when forged, with only a percent¬ 
age of 0.23. Karsten received a specimen of cold-short bar 
iron supposed by the sender to be spoiled by arsenic, but on 
analysis he found besides an inconsiderable amount of sulphur 
and 0.38 per cent, of phosphorus, which could not have been 
sufficient to make it very cold-short, 0.114 per cent of antimony 
which explained the whole. Haflpily for iron manufacturers 
antimonial ores of iron are very rare. When they cannot be 
handpicked they make irrecoverably cold-short iron. 1 

Berthierite , Haidengenite (of Berthier) was worked in veins near Chazelle ii 
Auvergne but abandoned on account of the badness of the antimony made from 
it. It is an iron black mass, covered with iridescent spots, confusedly foliated, 
much mixed up with quartz, carbonate of lime and iron pyrites, sometimes showing 
rudimentary prismatic crystals unlike the sesquisulphide of antimony, fusing readily 
before the blow-pipe and yielding 14.9 iron + 48.3 antimony + 28.3 sulphur + 3.2 
iron pyrites + 3.2 quartz + 0.3 zinc, or 1J atom sesquisulphide antimony + 1 
atom sulplmret of iron. Berthier has since pointed out two more such compounds, 
one containing 6.3 and the other 18.0 sulphuret iron. 2 


Iron and Chrome once mixed by Ilassenfratz made a metal 
that forged well, but was a little red-short. Chromiferous 
iron ores are uncommon, but chrome is quite as often found in 
pig iron as titanium is, but is entirely eliminated by puddling. 
Yauquelin gives an analysis of a red-short iron showing 0.6 per 
cent phosphorus and 0.4 per cent chrome. Steel and Chrome 
form alloys better known, by Berthier’s, and by Stodart and Fara¬ 
day’s experiments. Berthier tried first 1 per cent and then 1-J- 
chrome with cast steel, and produced a perfectly good and very 
beautiful damasked steel. Stodart and Faraday got admirable 
steel with 1600 steel and 16 chrome, and also 48 chrome. The 
last alloy, 3 per cent chrome, was harder but forged excellently 
w r ell. 3 

Chromiron ore, Chromate of iron , first discovered at Var in nodules of serpen¬ 
tine, occurs in the Ural, the Shetland islands and neai Baltimore and other places 


1 Karsten, § 267. 


2 Thompson, i. 499. 


3 Karsten, § 277. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


311 


in the United States. It is iron or brown-black, Iron and Titanium, 
streak brown, massive or octahedral, imperfectly 

metallic, uneven, subconchoidal, brittle, 5.5 hard, 4.321 specific gravity, not 
attracted when pure, and when pure crystals are analyzed, giving, 29.24 peroxide 
iron, 52.95 green oxide of chromium, 12.22 alumina, 3.09 wmite matter, 0.70 water 
and a trace of silica; or 1 + 2 + 1-fete, atoms.* 

Volkonskoite , a grass-green compact conchoidal dull very soft smooth mineral 
occurs in veins and nests, contains 1 atom of chromate of iron, or 7.2 per cent of 
the peroxide. 6 

Iron and Molybdenum have relationships unknown to Karsten. 6 In mineralogy 
molybdine or rnolybdena ochre produced from molybdenite or the sulphuret of molyb- 
dena unites with the peroxide of iron and has been so found in California. (D. D. 
Owen in Dana, ii. 144.) 

Iron receives Tungsten in its form of Wolfram or oxide of iron and manganese 
without injury; and Hassenfratz found Tungsten itself only made bar iron a little 
red-short. Cold, it was uncommonly extensible and like steel took a white face in 
hardening and showed in forging out a more granular and stringy, structure, so that 
Sheel (tungstate of lime) or a minute portion of wolfram will merely harden iron. T 
Wolfram is a common ore in tin mines and is said to accompany lead in grayw r aeke. 
It is massive and also crystalline, greyish black, foliated, imperfectly metallic opaque, 
not very brittle, 5 hard, (7.155), melting with borax to a green bead, and contain¬ 
ing variable proportions of tungstate of iron and tungstate of manganese. 8 It is 
called also Scheelate of iron and manganese, but Sheelite is properly its name when 
lime replaces the iron. 9 

Iron and Columbium or Tantalum occurs as Columbite or Tantalite detected 
again by Dr. Torrey at Haddam, Connecticut, and found in Finland and Bavaria, as 
iron black crystals tinged blue, 5.25 hard, 7.2 to 7.9 specific gravity, infusible, and 
consisting of from 1 to 8 atoms of columbate of iron + 1 atom of columbate of 
manganese ; that is, containing variously 14. protoxide, 14. peroxide, 7. protoxide 
iron. 1 Dana says it is essentially protoxide iron and manganese with colum- 
bic acid, and gives many localities. He makes Tantalite , cassiterotantal , siderotan- 
tal , etc. another crystal. 2 

Iron and Titanium occur together in so many ores that 
their relations are important. Karsten says that titanium makes 
the Norwegian iron strengflussig , hard to smelt, so that when 
the titanium is abundant in the ore the 35 foot charcoal stacks 
of Arendale cannot smelt it, and it is therefore hand-picked. 
Otherwise no injury is done the iron which in fact is harder, 
firmer and can stand more wear. Hassenfratz experimented 
with rutile or red schorl (oxide of titanium) and found his iron 
remain malleable and neither red- nor cold-short. It is doubtful 
if the metals unite chemically. Titanium as sjghen frequently 

' Thompson, i. 482. 6 § 273. 8 Thompson, i. 487. 1 Thompson, i. 485. 

6 Thompson, i. 495. 7 Karsten, § 277. 9 Dana. 8 ii. 351. 


312 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


occurs in the nodular iron ores (sphserosiderites) of the Coal 
Measures but never in the analysis of the iron made from them, 
passing off in fact with the slag or lying as separated crystals in 
the pig metal; and this happens because Titanium requires a 
higher heat than iron to reduce from its oxide with coal, and a 
still higher temperature to smelt afterwards. Wollaston first 
discovered its beautiful coppered and little dice-like crystals in 
the furnace-stack; and since then they have been found in many 
furnace-stacks, and the metal in red grains in many varieties of 
pig iron, or invisibly but mechanically mixed with pig iron in 
small quantities disappearing from it in the puddling. The 
traces of titanium are met in much of the ordinary pig iron of 
commerce. Karsten found that with titanic acid in varying 
proportions specular peroxide of iron is frequently mixed and 
called ilmenite , titanic or titaniferous iron ore or subsesquitita- 
niate of iron, wholly useless as an ore, as the titanic acid is 
in excess. But titaniate of iron (< gregorite or menachanite) 
iserine , crightonite and nigrin 3 are crystalline alloys of titanic 
acid with the protoxide of iron. 3 4 This sesquititaniate of the per¬ 
oxide exists in such extraordinary abundance in Brazil accord¬ 
ing to M. Montlevade, as to constitute mountain beds of great 
thickness and lateral extent, alternating with transition (or palae¬ 
ozoic) rocks. 5 Analyzed by Berthier its constituents appeared 
to be 56.2 peroxide iron, 41.0 Titanic acid, 2.5 quartz, Ox. 
Mang. a trace; evidently 1.5 + 1 atom. Its color is grey, and 
its mass falls into rhomboid fragments, with an almost compact 
fracture of fine grains a little scaly, little or no lustre (which 
distinguishes it from specular iron ore), full of fissures filled with 
pellicles or reddish-brown mica and cut by veins of quartz. 

Titaniferous iron in thin plates or seams in quartz, in 
grains and sometimes in large tabular crystals, occurring near 
specular iron, characterizes the Lower Silurian metamorphosed 
belt of rocks running through New Jersey and Vermont into 
Canada. It occurs in Connecticut and Rhode Island, 6 and in 
the azoic serpentine and chromic iron belt on the Maryland 
State line, and in the South. 

It was first observed at Arendal in Norway. It is an iron grey, frequently 

3 Hystatite includes Sheppard’s IVashingtonite. — Dana. 

4 See Thompson for their composition. 

6 Annal. des Mines, v. 479 in Thompson, ii. 467. 6 Dana. 


f 


1 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 313 

whitish, massive, crystalline ore with a black streak, Iron and Potassium, 
primarily a rhomboid; foliated, conchoidal fracture, 

opaque, brittle ; hardness 5 to 5.5, specific gravity 4.49 to 4.79, sometimes magnetic, 
the Brazilian is polar; rounds its thin edges but does not fuse before the blow-pipe, 
and shows a mean of three analyses 55.58 peroxide iron, 17.76 protoxide iron, 
22.73 titanic acid =3 + 1 + 1 atoms, or 3 atoms of fe^ratitaniated peroxide + 1 atom 
te^ratitaniated protoxide. A mean of four other analyses gives 26.1 + 28.5 + 40.9 
= 5 + 7 + 6 atoms, or 5 atoms of c/ititaniated peroxide + 6 atoms of <&titaniated 
protoxide. A last analysis seems to show 5 atoms peroxide + 1 atom titanic acid. 
Three distinct species at least exist and there may be many more. It is probably a 
double salt; to which class llmenite must also be referred after the full analysis of 
Mosander and Rose. 7 8 

llmenite, an ore near Minsk, Russia, brownish black, crystallized in the anhydrous 
peroxide form, translucent, brittle, slightly magnetic, II. 5.75, Sp. Gr. 4.766-4.808, 
contains 11.2 peroxide iron, 36.6 protoxide iron, 46.8 titanic acid with a little 
manganese.** 

Steel and Titanium, 199:1, beliaves like the best steel, but 
analysis showed that the titanium was distributed very irregu¬ 
larly through the mass and therefore not chemically but me¬ 
chanically. It w T as beautifully damasked when polished. Ivar- 
sten made the interesting discovery that the dark blue hue of 
furnace slag is due to a protoxide of titanium. 9 

Iron and Vanadium ; a metal discovered by Sefstrbm in certain Swedish irons 
easily oxidized, combined in such a way as to do no injury apparently to the iron; 
and at any rate vanadium is exceedingly rare. 1 

Iron and Ammonia (Nitrogen + Hydrogen, an alkaline compound gas) have 
little affinity. Savart found that iron wire subjected red hot for nine hours to a 
stream of ammonia increased in weight one 670th and fell in specific gravity from 
7.788 to 7.6637. After one or two hours the iron became brittle with a fine steel 
fracture and could be tempered to strike fire with flint. After eight or nine hours 
it could not be tempered but became softer than common iron and showed a black¬ 
ish grey flaky fracture. Despretz found its absolute weight at this time increased 
from 5 to 11 per cent, without any oxidation; it was white, brittle, even friable, 
less affected by air and water, but equally soluble in acids and magnetic. Despretz 
thinks all this due to a union of iron and nitrogen. In fact he subsequently suc¬ 
ceeded in combining iron directly with perfectly dry nitrogen. 2 

Iron and Potassium as carbonates are found mixed in the clay iron-stone ores ; 
but pure iron and the iron oxides are unaffected by the fixed alkalies when digested 
with them. Iron at a glow heat decomposes potassa and soda, producing potas¬ 
sium and sodium, and oxidizing itself. Pig metal melted with the alkalies is changed 

7 Thompson, i. 490. 

8 Thompson, i. 488. Dana calls it Crichtonite, Menaken , Menaccanite , Kibde/ophan, 
Basanomelan, Hystatite , IVashingtonite, Mohsite (ii. 115), all double salts; fine speci¬ 
mens are to be obtained in Orange county New York and elsewhere in the United 
States. Rose’s Mengite contains Zircon. 

9 Karsten, § 275. 1 Karsten, § 273. 2 Karsten, § 151. 





314 


PART IT.-DIVISION I. 


to steel iron and at last to pure bar iron, by the disappearance of its carbon in the 
reduction of the alkalies; but no union can be shown to take place between the 
metals; not even when hydrated alkalies and iron are melted in a close crucible. 
Hassenfratz’s investigations show how little influence the alkaline metals have over 
the formation of bar iron [and the practical working of the alkali-charged carbon¬ 
ate ores shows the same thing]. A gun barrel through w r hich a great quantity of 
potassium had been obtained, w r as found to be as malleable as before it was put to 
this service, soft and neither red- nor cold-short. Charcoal always contains potassa 
but no trace of potassium has ever been found in charcoal iron. 3 Iron and potas¬ 
sium were combined by Serullas (as he asserts) smelting iron filings, tartar (wein- 
stein) and lampblack (kiehnruss), and making the iron brittle ; but it must have been 
converted into wild steel or raw iron. Charcoal iron never contains potassium, 
nor has Karsten ever found potassa in blast furnace slag, although it occurs in coal 
ashes in considerable quantities. The potassa is therefore probably reduced to 
potassium in the stack, volatilized and returned to potassa again in the free air. 
Part of it is found as carbonate, muriate and sulphate of potassa mixed with a 
crowd of other substances and attached to the inwalls, or under the tymp, where 
Berthier found large quantities of potassa. In the refining hearth however potas¬ 
sium and sodium, may unite with raw iron, when potash is employed to cure the raw 
iron of phosphorus. Karsten tried to observe this union carefully by mixing quan¬ 
tities of 5 to 6 per cent of potash and of carbonate of soda with the iron during the 
whole time of refining the iron. But the result was a disappointment. The iron 
not only lost in welding quality but in tenacity, although but slight traces of the 
alkali could be found afterwards in it. This looks as if a minute quantity of these 
alkaline base metals would ruin iron when forced into union with it; but the con¬ 
clusion is of no importance to iron manufacturers as such feeding of iron with 
potassa and soda is never called for. 4 

Iron and Lithium—Barium—Strontium are unions unknown or uninves¬ 
tigated. 


Iron and Calcium (lime metal) unite, as iron and the alka¬ 
line metals do (potassium, sodium, etc.), by the decomposition of 
lime (calcia) at a very high heat, but unite imperfectly. Musliet 
has experimented on the influence of lime on iron melted together 
in crucibles and found it made iron much more brittle and espe¬ 
cially red-short. Caustic lime robs molten pig metal of its carbon. 
Pure Carrara marble added to iron in the refinery does not lessen 
but rather heighten the tenacity of the bar; but as no trace of 
the lime could be found by analysis in the bar, the explanation 
must be that the marble cleansed the iron of some of its phos¬ 
phorus. When large quantities of carbonate of lime were con¬ 
tinually added to iron in the refinery process, the tenacity of 
the bar iron was really lowered; it welded worse and spalled 

8 Hassenfratz im Journal des mines, t. xxiii. (Nr. 13G) p. 275, in Karsten, § 233. 

4 Karsten, §§ 233, 234. 


IKON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT 


315 


Iron and Aluminium. 


under tlie hammer; it was neither 
cold- nor red-short, hut lacked the 
welding property and therefore a firm consistency; was tech¬ 
nically ragged (hadriges) iron; one such specimen gave 0.215 
lime = 0.177 calcium, a quantity large enough to ruin any bar 
iron. Some ores require a surplus of lime flux, and their pig 
metal occasionally yields traces of lime, but not often. 5 


Iron meeting Lime or Magnesia in water is hindered from rusting by them as 
by the fixed alkalies; meeting them dry with coal dust at a melting heat it deoxidizes 
them to metals. Iron unassisted by carbon seems to have little power over the 
hydrated earths. Raw iron loses most of its carbon when smelted with earths, and 
is therefore refined. 


Iron and Magnesium. Karsten never found traces of this metal in any bar 
iron and in a few instances only in pig iron, and thinks the metallurgist need give 
himself no uneasiness about it. 6 But the care with which most iron founders select 
blue limestone from white, with the desire to avoid magnesian layers shows the 
need of a thorough discussion of the influence of magnesia. The presence of the 
sulphate of barytes in many rocks makes it desirable to know the part that Barium 
plays in its unions with iron. 

Iron and Aluminium (clay metal) were found united by 
Stodart and Faraday in tbe best Indian Steel or Wootz, and 
hence, it was conjectured, its .admirable qualities. The artificial 
alloy justified the conjecture. Three experiments of Karsten on 
a large scale with clay in the refinery showed that the refining 
process was retarded by the abundant production of protoxide 
silicates, but no evident injury to the tenacity of the bar iron 
resulted, and on analysis of the bar iron scarcely a trace of 
alumina appeared, although the analysis was conducted so as to 
insure the exhibition of all there might be present. JSTor was 
he ever able to find more than a trace of alumina in any of the 
various kinds of pig, bar iron and steel that he analyzed; there¬ 
fore he doubted the reduction of alumina to aluminum in the 
high-stack smelting process, and even the possibility of effecting 
such an alloy by direct smelting of clay, iron and coal in cruci¬ 
bles. On the other hand, if in the common puddling process 
anv aluminum be taken up it must greatly diminish the tenacity 
of the bar, because the strongest traces of alumina are found in 
rotten (faulbruchigen) iron. Faraday found in one steel 0.021 
and in another 1.3 alumina, and very various percentages in 
wootz, but Karsten considers some of the phenomena developed 

6 Karsten, § 242. 6 § 242. 


316 


PART II.-DIVISION I 


by Faraday in these analyses anomalous. His own assay of a 
genuine specimen of wootz gave very different results; it dis¬ 
solved almost entirely away in aqnaregia and left but a trace of 
alumina behind. Tartaric acid threw down iron and 0.1 manga¬ 
nese. The 0.54 burnt white ash contained phosphoric acid, 
silica, titanic oxide and doubtful traces of alumina. It remains 
therefore highly problematical, with the probability in fact 
against it, that small quantities of aluminium give its excellence 
to wootz. It is indeed true as Stodart and Faraday remark that 
steel and bar iron differ in their modes of acceptance of small 
quantities of metals; which need not be injurious to steel even 
when they very much lower the tenacity of bar; and this may 
be true of aluminium. Stodart and Faraday give the following 
prescription for making aluminous steel: Fine-broken pure 
steel or good bar, mixed with charcoal dust and long and 
strongly heated, makes a dark metal-grey alloy like tellurium ore 
(Bliittererz) of a highly crystalline aspect, the crystal flakes 
often ■§■ inch broad setting through the ingot, and very homoge¬ 
neously and regularly composed of 91.36 iron + 5.64 carbon. 
Pulverized and mixed with pure clay and long and strongly 
heated in a close crucible, this first alloy forms second alloy, 
whitish, brittle, granular and containing 6.4 alumina; 40 parts of 
which smelted with 700 parts good steel make an admirable mal¬ 
leable damasked wootz-like steel; also 67 parts with 500 of steel 
gave a very good malleable and beautifully damasked steel with 
all the characteristic excellences of Bombay wootz. 7 Karsten 
reiterates his disbelief that wootz owes any of its virtues to alu¬ 
minium and his assurance that if the latter reach 1.00 in any 
sort of iron or steel we may be well convinced of its injurious 
effect, inasmuch as he never found by his method of analysis 
even traces of alumina in but a few of the many specimens he 
analyzed. His method was the common and sufficient one to 
dissolve the iron in aquaregia; to dry; to moisten with muria¬ 
tic acid; redissolve in water; filter; precipitate with caustic 
salammoniac; dissolve the precipitate in a minute quantity of 
muriatic acid and boil long in a wide porcelain dish with con¬ 
centrated caustic potassa lye, so that all the oxide of iron is 
thrown down and an excess of potassa remains. Dilute with 


7 Karsten, § 240, quoting S. and Faraday in Archiv. u. s. f. ix. 322 u. f. 


317 


IKON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


abundance of water, filter, sweeten, 
over saturate with muriatic acid and 
decompose with carbonate of ammonia. 


Iron and Manganese. 

8 


Crucite is a crystal 2 atoms of terferrate of alumina (according to Thompson) 
+ 1 atom of terferrate of lime, to wit, 81.67 peroxide iron, 6.87 alumina, 6.00 
silica, 4.00 lime, 0.53 magnesia; found at Clonmell, Ireland; color red outside, 
metallic black within; always crystalline, four sided oblique prism. Its specific 
gravity 3.58 to 3.81 distinguishes it greatly from specular iron, next after which 
Thompson places it. 9 Dana’s Crucite is quite another thing, to wit, Andalusite, an 
accidentally ferruginous silicate of alumina. 1 


Iron and Grlucinum, 
Iron and Yttrium, 
Iron and Cerium, 
Iron and Zirconium, 
Iron and Thorium, 


'v 


- uninvestigated. 




Iron and Manganese almost always go together. When 
manganese is in small proportion to the iron it gives it hardness 
without disturbing its malleability and mellowness. Karsten 
has found as much as 1.85 per cent manganese in bar iron which 
was quite faultless. The metals melting at about the same high 
temperature, no trials to alloy them have been made. Mushet’s 
experiments seemed to show that 40 parts manganese was the 
highest quantity 100 parts of iron would take up, making an 
alloy of 71.4 pig iron + 28.6 manganese, no longer attracted by • 
the magnet, and more or less brittle according to the amount 
of carbon introduced. The action of manganese on iron was 
still therefore a desideratum. Rinman mentions in his history 
of iron a manganesian pig metal made by certain Swedish fur¬ 
naces which possessed the unheard of and incredible property 
of attracting the magnet only when red hot. Although it may 
very well be that the greater or less hardness of iron may 
depend on its containing manganese or not, certainly its malle¬ 
ability or brittleness is independent of any such influence, and 
dependent upon its Carbon, Silicium, Sulphur or Phosphorus. 
Ear iron may contain as much manganese as steel, and there 
is steel that shows no trace of it; on the other hand much bar 
iron contains it. Manganesian iron and steel will be harder 
than iron and steel that contain none. Bar iron cannot be 


s Karsten, § 241. 


9 Vol. i. p. 436. 


1 System, 1854, vol. ii. 258. 



318 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


made steel-hard with manganese, hut always with carbon. Yet 
there are metallurgists who insist that steel must contain man¬ 
ganese and that bar iron cannot contain as much as is found in 
steel. They have gone even so far as to assert that it depends 
entirely on the more or less complete elimination of manganese 
from puddled pig iron whether the result of the process shall be 
bar iron or steel. It is the carbon that hardens steel; yet man¬ 
ganese may indeed add to this hardness. I have frequently 
found bar iron (continues Karsten) with a much greater propor¬ 
tion of manganese than the best worked raw steel, and it is well 
known that not a trace of manganese can be detected in the 
cast-steel which is precisely that most sought after in the 
market. The best Steyermark and the best Siegen raw steel 
contain no manganese, although made from pig metal con¬ 
taining several per cent. It is universal experience that manga- 
nesian iron ores are apt to make steel, a fact inducing many to 
confound these ores with steel ores. Even if it could be proved 
that the greater proportion of manganese in these ores was the 
cause of their producing pig metal better adapted to making 
steel, it would still remain certain that it is not the manganese 
but the conditions for the union of iron and carbon which the 
manganese supplied (and in a very different way from itself 
uniting with the iron) that causes white pig metal to make steel 
more readily than grey. White pig metal made from ore contain¬ 
ing little or no manganese makes steel as readily as, and because 
it receives carbon in the same way as white pig metal made from 
high manganesian ores; so experience expressly teaches. It is 
however the rule, for other reasons, that pig metal made from 
manganesian iron ores is purer than white pig metal made from 
most of the non-manganesian iron ores. But white iron made arti¬ 
ficially from grey iron takes carbon in the same way and makes 
as good steel as any other. The high manganesian iron ores 
moreover are so apt to give white, hard, brittle metal, that the 
opinion comes to prevail that grey metal can hardly be blown 
from them at all, and that it is the manganese that hinders 
graphite from forming. The most perfect white iron called 
looking-glass iron (spiegel eisen, spiegel flosz, rohstalileisen, 
rohstahlflosz) can be steadily produced from almost no ores but 
these, which has led German iron-makers to think the manga¬ 
nese not only influenced the union of carbon and iron, but gave 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


319 


tlie silver look to tliis kind of iron. 

But later researches prove that it Iron and Manganese, 
neither hinders the formation of graphite, nor whitens the iron, 
effects due entirely to the temperature within the stack; 
hut that it favors the production of white iron by forming 
with the silex in the burden a very fusible silicate. From 
the very same ores have been blown grey iron holding much 
manganese and the whitest iron holding little. In fact in spite 
of the fluid silicate of manganese slag, grey iron is sure to be 
made so soon as the heat of the stack gets up high, or a basis 
of union is afforded for an infusible silicate. 2 


The relations of Iron and Manganese are as intimate and peculiar as those 
of Nickel and Cobalt; of Chlorine, Iodine and Bromine ; of Sulphur, Selenium 
and Tellurium; of Calcium, Strontium and Barium; of Lithium Sodium, and 
Barium, etc. What the essential, ultimate cause of such resemblances and 
relationships can be Dumas and Faraday may speculate upon and future che¬ 
mists may perhaps discover; but their practical effects are evident and may be 
turned to use. The elements of matter cannot throw themselves into such 
triads without a meaning. The dreams of the Alchemists may yet be realized 
in a way they did not dream of. They were wise enough to anticipate us in 
the instinctive conjecture that the essence of matter under all its multiforms 
is yet but one; and their natural inference was that by properly mixing gold 
and lead some intermediate metal would result; therefore that by finding some 
higher form of metallic matter than gold and mixing it properly with some lower 
form as copper or silver, gold would be the product. Dumas has shown for the 
first time by the tables of chemical equivalents prepared by the common labor of 
all chemists, the probability, in fact the almost certainty, that nature is producing by 
such mixtures such intermediate metallic elements. Take this first triad for example : 


Chlorine, a gas, yellow, with an equivalent .... 36 

Bromine, a fluid, red, “ “ .... 78 

Iodine, a solid, purple, “ “ .... 126 

three elements which hunt through nature in one leash, pursue the same game, 
and obey the same words of command, replace each other in all their salts, stand 
in the same order to one another in combining affinities, in elasticity, in odor, and 
in the power to bleach; and the chemical equivalent of Bromine 78 is nearly the 
exact mean of the equivalents of Chlorine on its right hand with Iodine on its 
left, 36 + 126 = 162. In the case of the other triads the mean equivalent is exact: 


Potassium .... 40 } Calcium.... 20 


Sodium. >24 Strontium .. £ 44 

Lithium. 7 ) Barium-69 ) 


Sulphur 
Selenium ... 
Tellurium .. 



It is known that Oxygen has another form Ozone ; that Sulphur has another form 
black and elastic like India rubber; that Phosphorus has another form Red phos¬ 
phorus uncombustible and innocent; that Carbon has two forms as Coal and 
Diamond; that even Alumina has two forms one soluble and the other insoluble in 
sulphurie acid, the difference being practically recognized in the preparation of the 


3 Karsten, §§ 280, 281, 282. 




320 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


sulphate from clay, but not understood. 3 It remains to be seen therefore whether 
Iron and Manganese be not perhaps allotropic or identical. See end of chapter. 

The manganesian iron ore of Stirling Massachusetts gave to Thompson’s analysis 
75.50 peroxide iron, 22.65 sesquioxide manganese (3 : 1), with 1.15 titanic acid and 
iron. It is a black, semi-metallic, red streak, foliated, smooth, brittle, opaque ore 
showing some splendent facets as of octahedral crystallization, hardness 7, specific 
gravity 5.08, fracturing small conchoidal, looking like cherry coal and acting feebly 
on the needle. 4 

The Franklinite of Sussex county New Jersey, commonly called a zinc ore , but 
equally a manganesian ore inasmuch as it is composed of 4 atoms peroxide iron + 

1 atom sesquioxide manganese + 1 atom oxide of zinc; or of 1 atom biferrate 
manganese + 1 atom biferrate of zinc, was analyzed and described by Berthier in 
1819, 6 as an iron-grey granular and massive ore, powdering dark brown with a frac¬ 
ture conchoidal, and also as octahedral crystals sometimes several inches long, semi¬ 
transparent, blood red, brittle, hard (6 to 6.5), specific gravity 5.07 (Berthier says 
4.87 ; pieces with red zinc 4.25), acts sensibly on the needle but is not polar, and 
consists of 66 peroxide iron, 16 sesquioxide manganese, 17 oxide zinc. 6 Abich 
gives 68.88 + 18.17 + 10.81 and Dickerson 66.12 + 21.50, 7 so that the proportion 
of manganese and zinc is far from being settled in this famous ore. See more under 
iron and zinc. 

The sesquisilicate of manganese found in Franklin New Jersey described in the 
Annals of the New York Lyceum contains 6.76 protoxide iron, or 1 atom of the 
tersilicate of iron with 8 atoms of the sesquisilicate of manganese. Thompson also 
gives a red mangankiesel with 13.50 protoxide of iron while another specimen has 
but a trace of iron. In fact all the manganesian ores and minerals contain more or 
less iron and all the iron ores more or less manganese. 8 

The ferruginous silicate of manganese found at Sparta New Jersey, a slightly red¬ 
dish brown six-sided prism, foliated, glimmering, opaque, brittle crystal contains 
15.45 peroxide iron, 46.21 protoxide manganese, 30.65 silica, 7.30 water and car¬ 
bonic acid, = 1 tersil. iron + 3 sil. mang. + 2 water. 

Nevikirkite is one of many species long confounded under the name of “ grey 
ore of manganese brilliant black, metallic splendent; in microscopic right rect¬ 
angular needle prisms coating, red hematite and analyzing 40.35 peroxide iron + 
66.30 binoxide manganese + 6.70 water, by a very complicated atomic arrangement. 9 

Huraulite, a reddish yellow small transparent, vitreous crystal contains 11.52 
protoxide iron, 33.30 protoxide manganese, 38.00 phosphoric acid, 18.00 water, = 

2 atoms diphosphate iron + 6 atoms phosphate manganese + 13 atoms of water. 1 

Helvine is a sulphuret and silicate of manganese containing 5.5 of protox. iron. 

Iron and Nickel will be noticed together under the head of 
meteoric iron in the chapter on ores. If chemically com¬ 
pounded they unite in various proportions; for six specimens 
in Thompson show 1.5 + 98.5, 3.5 + 96.5, 6.36 + 91.76, 7.87 + 
90.76, 8.21 + 91.23 and 8.59 + 91.51, which last is just 1 atom 
”3.25) nickel + 10 atoms (35) iron. Bergman’s experiments 

3 W. M. Uhler of Phil. 0 Thompson, i. 438. 9 Thompson, i. 510. 

4 Thompson, i. 437. 7 Dana, ii. 106. 1 Thompson, i. 518. 

6 Annales des Mines, iv. 483. 8 Thompson, i. 520. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


321 


show them uniting in various proportions _ , , 

to make a mellow, ductile alloy. The Ir0n aad NlCkeL 
magnetic powers of nickel being once discovered, the dis¬ 
covery of those of all the metals in their order followed. 3 
Nickel alloyed with cast iron is now believed to increase its 
brittleness, as carbon, phosphorus or sulphur does. Fair- 
bairn’s experiments, published in a paper read before the 
Manchester Society, 3 to test the validity of the hopes entertained 
by many engineers that the exact proportion of nickel to iron 
found in meteoric iron, namely 2£ per cent, might be adopted 
to toughen common iron, resulted in a disappointment. The 
nickel was prepared by melting 301bs. of roasted ore with 51bs. 
of pure sand, 21bs. of charcoal and 21bs. of lime, six hours in a 
furnace, slagged, cooled and remelted with half a pound of 
roasted ore and a quarter of a pound of pure bottle glass. The 
nickel thus obtained was fused with Blsenavon No. 3 pig iron, 
2J per cent, and run into bars, which on being tested lost 22 to 
26 per cent of strength. Another series of experiments in which 
pure nickel was used in the same proportion showed a loss of 
17 per cent in strength, but on the other hand a greater propor¬ 
tionate loss of elasticity. The precise object of the experiments 
was to discover a use of nickel to increase the tenacity of the 
metal used for mortars and heavy ordnance. During the last 
two years innumerable tests and experiments have been made 
for that purpose with more or less success; but the ultimate 
result appeared to be, in the opinion of the author and others, 
that for the casting, or rather the construction of heavy artillery, 
there is no metal so well calculated to resist the action of gun¬ 
powder as a perfectly homogeneous mass of the best and purest 
cast iron when freed from sulphur and phosphorus. With mal¬ 
leable iron, such as meteoric iron is, the result of experiments 
with nickel might be very different. 


Iron and Cobalt unite according to Brandt and Bergman in all proportions 
(the more readily the more cobalt) losing nothing in mellowness and ductility. 
Hassenfratz agrees that the alloy hammers and welds well but is a little red-short. 
On the other hand Garnej is of the opinion that cobalt makes iron a little cold-short. 
Karsten made no experiments. 4 

1 Karsten, §§ 270, 72. 

* London Repertory of Patent Inventions No. 776, in Frank. Inst. Journal, p. 280. 
See also tables, London, E. D. Phil. Mag. June, 1858, p. 486. 4 Karsten, § 272. 

21 


322 


rART ir.-DIVISION I. 


Iron and Zinc can hardly be made to alloy either by direct 
smelting or by chemical reduction although their surfaces will 
at a proper heat, like iron and tin. Kin man thought his experi¬ 
ments justified him in saying that zinc made iron softer and 
more brittle and that a true union was doubtful. Gruelin 
afterwards tried in vain. Iron will not precipitate zinc from 
sulphuric acid and so unite with it by reduction, but zinc oxide 
will refine raw pig metal by abstracting its carbon, pure zinc 
flying from the furnace in fumes and the rest of the oxide form¬ 
ing a dark-blue black slag with a part of the iron. In IIol- 
lunder’s iron pots for obtaining grain zinc, after long use, an 
alloy an inch or more thick will line and finally eat up the 
whole sides and bottom. Karsten has never found more than 
4 to 4-J- per cent of iron in zinc and that probably not in the 
form of a true alloy. Zinciferous iron ores are found and 
smelted in many countries. The greater part of their zinc is 
undoubtedly driven otf in furnace fumes, as the odor and color 
of the flames demonstrate, but a good deal of it is condensed as 
oxide and pure zinc in the cooler upper part of the stack, and 
finally stops it with a ring-shaped oferibruch as the Germans call 
it, schwamm as it is called in Silesia, full of grains of lead, when 
that metal is also present in the ore. As the furnace usually 
makes j)Oor iron when the schwamm is broken in to clear the 
tunnel head, it has been thought that some mischievous union 
of the zinc with the iron was obtained; but Karsten assigns the 
trouble to the cooling off of the burden by the interposition of 
the fragments of the schwamm. There is scarcely any zinc free 
from iron under half of one per cent; but that iron does not 
contain zinc readily is clear from Karsten’s experiments at a 
coke furnace at the Koyal Works in Upper Silesia with 320 cwt. 
of galmai (silicio-carbonate of zinc) containing 16 per cent zinc 
and 31 per cent iron. The furnace flamed zinc fiercely, its heat 
was kept very high, the tapped iron looked like best grey, but 
was very red and soon stiffened, and the whole hearth would 
scarcely clear; the pigs had a skin which oxidized on cooling, 
broke perfectly granular, with metallic lustre, looked like good 
grey iron, was very soft, bent easily but was hard to break, was 
very tender and crumbled when broken up, as if its grains had 
no great cohesion. The run gave out neither flame nor odor. 
The trial lasted two days when suddenly the stack began to 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


323 


smoke and zinc flames poired from the _ , _. 

. i -x • i i i t i t Iron and Zinc. 

tymp, white iron and porous black slag fol¬ 
lowed and after five days more the furnace with difficulty 
was saved from chilling up. The iron of the trial was care¬ 
fully and skillfully refined, giving white and bluish and 
yellowish flames, etc. etc., and after going under the hammer 
turned out soft and tough and firm in the extreme without a 
trace of either cold or red-short quality. The pig iron when 
analyzed gave a small but indeterminate percentage of zinc but 
the bar iron not a trace; and if any was present its influence 
for evil was evidently practically nothing. Subsequent experi¬ 
ments to insure this conclusion were made by refining pig iron 
mixed with pure zinc, and also with pure oxide of zinc, under 
the same skillful and accurate superintendence of ITerr Paul, 
leaving nothing to wish in these respects. The bar iron showed 
not the least defect of quality and by analysis no trace of zinc. 
Pinman also clears zinc of all evil influence on iron. It merely 
requires a higher heat to be kept up in the blast furnace and 
also in the puddling fire. The “ galvanizing ” or zincking of 
iron Karsten discusses in § 265. 

The following letter received from Mr. Joseph C. Kent of the 
Cooper Iron Works at Philipsburg Hew Jersey, on the Dela¬ 
ware opposite Easton, is of importance here :— 

“ In order to make my process understood I must premise 
that the difficulty heretofore encountered in working iron ores 
containing oxide of zinc in blast furnaces has been the gradual 
clogging up and cooling of the furnace. The oxide of zinc in 
the ores is volatilized in the blast furnace a short distance above 
the region of the tuyeres ; the sudden conversion into vapor of 
a quantity of the solid ore renders latent a considerable portion 
of the heat necessary for the successful working of the furnace ; 
at first this evil is not serious because the equilibrium of heat is 
not destroyed; but the oxide of zinc traversing the height of 
the furnace condenses on the cool layers of stock encountered 
in its upward progress; these descend with their coating of zinc 
in addition to the oxide contained in the ore itself, and cause 
increased vaporization and abstraction of heat, increased con¬ 
densation in the higher parts of the furnace is the result, and 
this continues until finally the combustible material in the fur¬ 
nace becomes coated with zinc and resists the action of oxygen 


324 


PART II.—DIVISION I. 


for its combustion, tlie pores of the ore become clogged and sur¬ 
face coated with zinc until the minerals, almost impervious to 
the action of the deoxydizing agent, descend raw and unpre¬ 
pared, and complete the chilling and clogging by carrying the 
oxide of zinc into the crucible or lower part of the furnace. 

“ To overcome these difficulties resort has been had to various 
methods; among others working Franklinite ore in low fur¬ 
naces and consuming large quantities of coal to preserve the 
requisite temperature, but thus far these methods though entail¬ 
ing great expense have not been successful. 

“ By my process the difficulties are so far overcome that I work 
iron ores containing zinc successfully in an ordinary blast fur¬ 
nace and without any additional consumption of minerals and 
combustibles above the usual requirements of blast furnaces for 
the smelting of iron ores. 

“ In an ordinary blast furnace I charge Franklinite or the ores 
of iron containing oxide of zinc with the usual quantity of coal 
and such fluxing materials as are shown by a careful analysis 
of the ores to be necessary. I continue the charging until the 
furnace shows signs of cooling in the region of the tuyeres ; I 
then discontinue the use of zinc ores, and charge with any of 
the ordinary ores of iron, such as magnetic oxide, sesquioxide, 
hydrated peroxide, etc., but preferably with ores having a silicious 
gangue ; I continue charging th£se ores with the usual amount 
of combustible and fluxing material until the equilibrium of 
heat is restored and the furnace scoured / I then resume the 
charging of zinciferous ores and alternate as before. I receive 
the oxide of zinc in the hot-blast ovens and under the boilers, 
using one set of boilers and hot-blast oven when charging zinc 
ores ; and a second set when charging the ordinary ores ; when 
using the latter ores I clean the oxide of zinc from the boilers 
and hot-blast ovens which have received it and collect it in 
bags or boxes. 

“ In this process I use the gas from the furnace in the usual 
way for heating the boilers and blast, obtaining the requisite 
heat by keeping the space under the boilers and in the hot-blast 
oven unobstructed and clean. 

“ By this method of working and alternating the ores I have 
kept a furnace in operation for more than one year continuously ; 
I usually run on zinc ores for four or five consecutive days, and 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


325 


then change to ordinary ores charging them j ron an( ^ rp-^ 
for three or four days ; but these periods wiL 
vary with circumstances depending on the size of the furnace, 
qualities of ores and other matters which experience will sug 
gest to every intelligent iron master. Joseph C. Kent.” 

Zinc in small quantities occurs in argillaceous iron ore six inches thick in Meander 
creek Trumbull county Ohio, in coal measures. 6 


Iron and Lead forms an alloy, not by smelting, but when 
their mixed oxides are reduced together by coal dust, or when 
a little pure iron is used to reduce a large body of oxide of lead. 
Rinman could not make iron receive a small quantity of lead. 
Morveau’s smeltings productive of much iron and a little lead 
and much lead and a little iron have not been substantiated by 
later experiments. It is important to know the relations of two 
metals so often found together in iron ores. Lead often runs 
out in tapping the blast furnaces that smelt iron ores containing 
lead, and when these are blown out, lead regulus and oxide, 
massive and crystallized, beautiful vermilion and silicate of 
lead are found in the hearth. Karsten never succeeded in 
smelting bar iron with lead, and pig iron lay white but unalloyed 
on the lead; when coal dust was added with bar iron, pure 
lead and pure white pig iron core resulted. When Litharge 
reduced by an excess of iron was used there resulted pure lead, 
lead-bearing iron slag, and white non-lead-bearing iron core. 
Pure bar iron at a high heat reduced litharge to a pure lead, a 
black lead-bearing iron slag, and a perfectly fluid iron mass, 
surrounded by melted lead. Pig iron acted not as pure bar 
iron, but had a coarse leafy bend, crackled, soon cracked at the 
edges, was brittle but not the least hard, dissolved without resi¬ 
due in nitric acid and contained no carbon, and on analysis 
showed itself, although apparently pure iron, to contain 2.06 
lead. The lead when analyzed was perfectly free from iron. 6 
There seems therefore no cause of anxiety in smelting a lead¬ 
bearing iron ore lest the iron should take up and be impaired 
by lead. Karsten could never find lead in his pig metal. 

Iron and Tin alloy in all possible proportions. Bergman 
alone confines them to two 21 tin : 1 iron and 1 tin : 2 iron; the 


6 Whittlesea, in Mather, 1838, p. G6. 


8 Karsten, § 250. 



32G 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


former malleable, harder but duller than tin; the latter non- 
malleable and too hard to scratch with the knife. Rinman’s 
iron with tin was of coarser grain than cast steel, polished well, 
was very hard, not easily cracking at the edges under the 
hammer, not rusting so easily and as having a better clang than 
pig metal. Lassaigne found an iron-tin alloy formed in his 
quicksilver retorts as four-sided steel-like needles. Hassenfratz 
impregnated gunbarrels with tin and found them unmalleable, 
falling to powder under the hammer. Karsten tried 1 per cent 
pure English tin to iron ready for refining and found no red- 
sliort effect; the iron hammered well though it gave out white 
fumes and whitened anvil and hammer; but the tin made it 
highly cold-short, hard to ball in the puddling, and billing to 
pieces under the hammer at a high heat; and yet this worthless 
iron contained by analysis merely 0.19 per cent of tin. Tin 
therefore lessens in a high degree the tenacity of iron. The 
effect of phosphorus in this proportion (0.19) would not be 
noticeable. It is very needful then to be on the guard for tin 
in working up old iron as well as pig metal made from ores 
which may contain tin ore.’ 

Iron and Bismuth may form a chemical union, but about this Brand, Henkel, 
Gellert and others disagree ; these three metallurgists maintain the possibility of an 
alloy of 1: 2 to 3 parts; Beaume denies it; Rinman found the metals separate 
in smelting. Karsten says iron can take up some bismuth as it can some lead; but 
bismuth cannot take up iron. He tried refining iron with addition of 1 per cent 
bismuth with no perceptible effect upon the iron except to make it a little raw in 
the puddling fire ; blue-green flames and odor rose for half an hour and the bloom 
smelt a little on coming out; but it forged perfectly well and was faultless iron, con¬ 
taining on analysis 0.081 per cent bismuth. Hassenfratz’s experiments made good 
forge iron but a little red-short and made very brittle by plunging in water. 8 

Iron and Copper unite in fixed but not well understood pro¬ 
portions. Each seems capable of holding but a very small 
proportion of the other, and the magnetism of the iron in both 
cases seems undisturbed. All metallurgists agree that pig iron 
is made firmer, harder and more brittle by copper and therefore 
Rinman proposes to use copper in anchors, pillars, dies, anvils, 
rollers, etc. But the influence of copper on bar iron is regarded 
variously. Rinman in one place affirming that a small quantity 
of copper makes iron red-short, which in another place he 


T Karsten, § 2-58. 


8 Karsten, § 266. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


327 


denies. Levavassenr found it in a red- 


iron and Copper. 


short iron, and most forgemen take the 
same for granted and believe that the little copper a careless 
refiner burns ofi* the former-tool will spoil the whole of the 
iron. Hassenfratz found the immediate alloy of the two both 
hot and cold-short. Musliet’s experiments convinced him 
that bar iron would unite with copper in all proportions, 
that the copper-color increased until the alloy was half and 
half, and then began to pale, and that the hardness in¬ 
creased with the percentage of iron while the tenacity 
diminished.— Steel alloys perfectly with 10 per cent copper but 
makes a cast steel which will not forge; when the percentage 
reaches 30 the copper begins to separate and lie at the bottom, 
white and malleable. Mushet thinks that grey pig iron will 
combine with very little copper if with any, finding that 5 per 
cent appeared copper-colored at the cracks and 10 per cent 
came away in leaves from the surface of the regulus; from all 
which he argues that iron rejects copper in proportion as it 
receives carbon. Krilowski at the Ural copper works found that 
pigs of iron containing from 10 to 14 per cent copper, when 
remelted, separate so that the copper collects itself in holes 
below, still retaining however 20 per cent of its own weight of 
iron, and leaving behind in the iron above from J to 2 per cent 
of copper. 

Karsten 9 after narrating the above gives his own experience 
with Iron and Copper in the Silesian refineries. At first per 
cent copper kept the refining flame a lively greensand the 
blooms firm and perfectly malleable without the least red-short 
show. One per cent made the blooms weld badly and require 
a third, fourth and fifth heat and even then all the iron was not 
balled. A bar at the hottest thrust into water gave out a green 
flame ; two out of eight bars broke under the hammer; and an 
analysis showed in one 0.286 per cent copper. All this seems 
to show that copper in small quantities although very bad tor 


iron in the puddling furnace is not so injurious to its mallea¬ 
bility as was supposed, but is more injurious than phosphorus. 
In Stengel’s experiments with bar iron and steel, red-short 
showed itself first when the copper had reached 0.44 per cent; 
but had he used inferior pig iron to make his bar as Karsten 

»§§ 252, 253. 


323 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


did, liis innoxious limit of copper would have been lower. 
Very slight percentages of copper in hot refined blooms betrays 
itself by green flames when water is dashed over them ; but the 
most remarkable test is this: that it requires six times as long 
to dissolve cupreous iron in sulphuric acid and aquaregia than 
pure bar iron. 1 Stodart and Faraday mention a steel alloy of 
2 per cent copper but deny it the remarkable qualities others 
have ascribed to copper-steel, saying that it has not. the qualities 
even of good steel. Vazie recommends Iron with 1 per cent 
Brass for steam engine and pump cylinders and wherever cast 
iron is subjected to unusual friction or corroding water. Kars- 
ten’s experiments in the Silesian Gleiwitz works confirm the 
recommendation. 2 Karsten says that copper is a good solder 
for iron where welding is out of the question, or has failed. 
Brass is still better as more fusible. 3 There was discovered at 
Nine veil a tripod leg of iron covered with bronze cast over it. 
Iron and steel cleansed with salammoniac have been cast round 
with copper, the plates being reheated to a remelting heat; 
Poole finds the method very practicable. Karsten says that 
it is useless to plate iron with sulphate of copper for the plating 
will not stick, but copper, zinc and arsenic inlaid in iron and 
remelted there with borax sticks. A bronzed appearance is 
given iron by rubbing it with a diluted vinegar solution of 2 
parts crystallized griinspan and 1 part salammoniac. 4 Rinman 
expresses the same opinion. Hassenfratz permeated gun- 
barrels with the vapor of lead and copper and spoilt their 
quality, by making them extremely red-short and also some¬ 
what cold-short, both which facts however Karsten refers to 
other causes. 6 

In the Irish copper mines of Wicklow now abandoned, the workmen’s iron tools 
becoming coated with copper led to experiments of transmutation. As much as 
500 tons of iron were left in the copper waters for a year, and every ton produced 
1J or 2 tons of a precipitate, from every ton of which was obtained 16 cwt. of cop¬ 
per. The iron fell to the bottom of the water as a red peroxide. A bowl was ex¬ 
hibited in Neusohl, Hungary, in 1673 gilded and adorned with silver, bearing this 
inscription: “ Once I was iron now I am copper, I contain silver and am crowned 
with gold. 6 


Iron and Mercury have relations unknown. 

* Karsten, § 253. 2 § 254. 3 Karsten, § 255 4 Karsten, § 255. 

5 § 257. 6 Von Leonhard, translation. Baltimore, 1839, p. 86. 


IRON AS A CHEMICAL ELEMENT. 


329 


Iron and Silver will alloy in uncer- _ , 

, . . . ., . . J „ Iron and Silver. 

tain proportions to the injury ot the tor- 

mer. Rinman found that silver would accept about 20 per 
cent of iron. But even 0.034 per cent of silver in iron les¬ 
sens its tenacity in a high degree. Stodart and Faraday 
found that steel and silver would inix perfectly so long 
as they were kept fluid, but on cooling, globules of pure silver 
were expressed and flowed together over the surface, while the 
silver in the mass was distributed into strings, the whole appear¬ 
ing like bundles of silver and steel hairs which seemed to be 
united by forging. If the melt was continued a great while the 
sides and lid of the crucible were covered with a flue silver 
dew. A bar of steel containing l-160th silver yielded globules 
of silver in the forging and rapidly rusted in air. The silver 
threads were visible wdien . the proportions were reduced to 
1-400th, but not wdien reduced to l-500th (or 0.2 per cent) even 
when forged, acidulated and examined with a microscope. The 
excess of silver in any proportion above this was thrown off by 
the steel in the form of dew. This alloy forged w r ell, but was a 
little harder than cast steel or wootz without showing the least 
disposition under the hammer or in hardening to edge-cracking 
or bristling, and is therefore recommended for very superior 
steel, but Karsten doubts the reality of the alloy. 7 

Bin man found that silver and iron, 5 :1, made an alloy as 
malleable as silver and hard enough to be used for bells, rings, 
fruit knives, etc. Silver will not take up iron 3:1. Silver and 
iron 5 or 6: 1 by weight is as strongly attracted by the magnet 
as pure iron, and Coulomb discovered attraction when the iron 
was but l-320tli, and even so called pure silver obtained from 
hornsilver and containing but 1-133119th iron disturbed the 


needle. Morveau saw the alloy of silver and iron separate into 
two parts, the undermost of silver containing iron and the upper¬ 
most of iron containing silver not more than l-80th, of extra¬ 
ordinary hardness and with a structure of pure iron. Coulomb 
maintains that silver can hold but l-150th iron. All agree that 
iron does not hurt silver; but a great experiment in Upper 
Silesia proved that even 1.5 per cent of silver did great injury 
to refined iron, spoiling its forging qualities. 8 


7 Vol. I- P- 495, § 248 > quoting Archiv. f. Borgbau ix. 338, 350; Eisner in Erdmann’s 
Journ. f. Prakt. Ckemi. xx. 110. 8 Karsten, § 247, p. 491. 


PART II.-DIVISION I. 


330 

Iron and Uranium, Palladium, Tantalum, and Cadmium, 

have relationships unstudied and obscure. 

# 

Steel and Palladium, Steel and Rhodium, and Steel } 
Iridium and Osmium, are all alloys celebrated by Stodart 
and Faraday for excellence and damask beauty. Steel and 
Rhodium excels the other two in combining tenacity and hard¬ 
ness, making edge tools that require a higher temperature to 
treat than the best Wootz, which requires a stronger heat than 
the best English cast steel. The metals seem to unite in all 
proportions. Three per cent Iridium and Osmium keeps iron 
from rusting and enables it to become harder by plunging red 
hot into water, without the addition of carbon; a quality pos¬ 
sessed by pure bar iron containing silicium. 9 

Iron and Gold unite easily and in all proportions and so do 
steel and gold. 1 

Iron and Platinum have not been often alloyed by melting. 
Stodart and Faraday succeeded in effecting such an alloy but 
without practical results. Lewis and Rinman had previously 
melted together pig iron and platinum and thought they ob¬ 
tained a harder and more brittle metal, but this result might be 
attributable to the coal they used. Stodart and Faraday’s ex¬ 
periments with Steel and Platinum are celebrated. The 
mixture is perfect and melts at a lower heat even than steel, 
equal parts by weight giving an alloy of great strength and ad¬ 
mirable polish, not losing its brilliancy, and of a color well 
adapted for specula, of a specific gravity of 9.862. PI. 9U + 
steel 20 makes a perfect alloy. Steel 80 + platinum 10 makes 
an admirable alloy but with a fine damasked surface. Platinum 
between the limits of 1 and 3 per cent improves the cutting 
edge of steel (1.5 being the best), and unlike other metals, pro¬ 
tects steel from rust. 2 

Humboldtine, eisenresin, oxalate of iron , mellate of iron , 41.70 protoxide iron, 
42.69 oxalic acid, 15.91 water, a capillary, botryoidal, or tabular, sulphur-yellow 
earth, resulting from the decomposition of plants (?) and found in Hessian brown 
coal , and in Canada shales (T. S. Hunt of the Canada Survey )., s Mariano de Rivero 
gives 53.86 + 46.14. Thompson suspected the oxalic acid to be another. 4 

* Karsten, §278. 1 Karsten, §§ 245, 246. 2 Karsten, § 251. 

3 Dana, ii. 465. 4 Thompson, ii. 469. 


ADDENDA TO DIVISION I. 




Iron and Silicon, page 293.— Gramenite, a silicate of iron, in thin aggregated 
lamellae of fine grass-green color, produced from the decomposition of some feld- 
spathic rock and the substitution of sesquioxide of iron for alumina; analyzed by 
Bergemann Si 38.39 Fe 25.46 Al 6.87 Fe 2.80 fi 23 36, etc.=100. 1 

Seladonite , a silicate of iron, in the form of a green plastic earth, decomposed 
from basaltic tufa, on Mt. Baldo, and got in Kaaden, Bohemia, giving V. Hauer 
Si 41.0 Fe 23.4 H, C 19.3 Ca 8.2 Al 3.0 K 3.0 Mg 2.3. 2 

Acmite , a bisilicate of protoxide and sesquioxide of iron, gave Ratninelsberg a 
mean of Si 51.66 Fe 28.28 Fe 5.23 Na 12.46 Ti 1.11, etc. 

JEgerine , a bisil. prot. and sesq. iron, gave him Si 50.25 Fe 22.07 Fe 8.80 Na 9.29 
Ca 5.97 Mn 1.40 Mg 1.28 Al 1.22 K 0.94. 

Babingtonite, a bisil. prot. and sesq. iron, gave him Si 51.22 Fe 11.00 Fe 10.26 
Ca 19.32 Mn 7.91 ]VTg 0.77 Na,K traces. 

Arfvedsonite, a bisil. prot. and sesq. iron, gave him Si 51.22 Fe 33.75 Fe 7.80 
Na 10.58 Ca 2.08 Mn 1.12 Mg 0.90 K 0.68. 

These four consist of R 3 Si 2 : Fe Si 2 :: 1:1 1:2 3:1 and 2:3; the silicates of 

protoxide and silicates of sesquioxide being isomorphous. 3 

Iron and Sulphur, page 306.— Rcemerite is a new iron pyrites described by J. 
Grailich from the Rarnmelsburg mines, coarsely granular and partly crystalline, 
giving to L. Tochermak a mean of S 41.54 F 20.63 Fe 6.26 H 28.00, etc. 3 

Iron and Potassium, page 314.—Dr. Eckert informs me that it has been the 
custom for many years to sell for manure the white dust which is obtained in 
cleaning out the gas rooms and pipes of the anthracite furnaces at Pinegrove and 
Reading owned by Eckert & Myers, as 50 per cent of it consists of Potassa. Its 
effect upon the soil is equal and superior to that of imported guano. 

Iron and Aluminium, page 316.—For process to separate Alumina from Iron see 
American Journal of Science and Art, New Haven, 1858, page 401. 

Page 320- —observations on atomic volumes, with considerations on the probability that 

CERTAIN BODIES NOW CONSIDERED AS ELEMENTARY MAY BE DECOMPOSED. 

Prof. Dumas, at the British Association, alluded to the solubility of some substances, and the 
insolubility of others, giving many instances of the difference of this quality in regard to solution in 
water, sulphuric and strong acids, and referred to Berthollet’s views and experiments on this sub¬ 
ject. The measure of volume of bodies, he thought, might be represented with as much facility as 
the weight ; thus, for example, magnesia and sulphuric acid may have their volumes numerically 
expressed before and after combination, and also graphically by lines. Magnesia with sulphuric 
acid showed a certain degree of condensation, lime a greater condensation, and barytes the greatest 
condensation ; and these he could represent and reason on as well by lines cf hifle v eDt lengths as 
by figures or by words. The degree of condensation had also relation to the quality or degree oi 

1 Dana, Amer. Jour. 1858, p 348. 2 Dana, Amor. Jour. 1858, p. 34N 

3 Sitz. Akatl. Wien, 1858, p. 272, in Atner. Jour. 1S58, p. 352, ?5i 



332 


PART II.-DIVISION I, 


solubility. Thus, sulphate of magnesia was very soluble, sulphate of lime but little soluble, and the 
greatly condensed sulphate of barytes was insoluble. He then pursued the analogy with the 
chlorides, comparing the chloride of sodium with the extreme case of the chloride of silver. After 
graphically expressing the solubility of bases with sulphuric acid by lines, he proceeded to show 
that the relative volumes of the elements chlorine, bromine, and iodine, could be perfectly repre¬ 
sented by lines equal in length. Prof. Dumas said that when a number of metals are represented 
by lines, at first they seem in confusion, and it would appear like an impossibility to arrange them 
in a system of lines, to permit their relations to appear; but when considered in relation to the 
substitution of one property for another, or of the substitution of one substance for another in 
groups, then their arrangement became easy. Many examples were given of groups of bodies such 
as the alkalies, earths, etc., arranged in the order of their affinities. He also called attention in the 
Triad groups, to the intermediate body, having most of its qualities intermediate with the proper¬ 
ties of the extremes, and also that the atomic or combining number was also of the middle term, 
exactly half of the extremes added together ; thus, sulphur 16, selenium 40, and tellurium 64. Half 
of the extremes give 40, the number for the middle term. Chlorine 35, bromine 80, and iodine 125. 
Of the alkalies, lithia, soda and potassa, or earths, lime, strontia and baryta, afforded, with many 
others, examples of this coincidence ; hence this suggestion, that, in a series of bodies, if the 
extremes were known by some law, intermediate bodies might be discovered ; and, in the spirit of 
these remarks, if bodies are to be transformed or decomposed into others, the suggestion of sus¬ 
picion is thrown upon the possibility of the intermediate body being composed of the ext ernes of 
the series and transmutable changes thus hoped for. Prof. Dumas then showed that in the metals 
similar properties are found to those of non-metallic bodies ; alluding to the possibility that metals 
that were similar in their relations, and which may be substituted one for the other-in certain com¬ 
pounds, might also be found transmutable, the one into the other. He then took up the inorganic 
bodies, where substitutions took place, which, he stated, much resembled the metals. After dis¬ 
cussing groups in Triads, Prof Dumas alluded to the ideas of the ancients, of the transmutations of 
metals, and their desire to change lead into silver, and mercury into gold ; but these metals do not 
appear to have the requisite similar relations to render those changes possible. He next passed to 
the changes of other bodies—such as the transmutation of diamonds into black lead, under the 
voltaic arc. After elaborate reasoning, and offering many analogies from the stores of chemical 
analysis, Prof. Dumas expressed the idea that the law of the substitution of one body for another 
in groups of compounds might lead to the transformation of one group into another at will; and 
we should endeavor to devise means to divide the molecules of one body of one of these groups 
into two parts, and also of a third body, and then unite them, and probably the intermediate body 
might be the result. In this way, if bodies, of similar properties and often associated together, 
were transmutable one into the other, then, by changes, portions of one might often, if not always, 
be associated with the other. Thus, in nature, where chlorine occurred, iodine and bromine might 
also be found, and always would be if they were transmutable the one into the other. Cobalt is thus 
mysteriously associated with nickel, iron with manganese, sulphur with selenium, etc. In the arts, 
during operations, when certain radicals were produced, analogous ones were found constantly to 
be associated. In the distillation of brandy, oil of wine is always an associated result. Dr. Fara¬ 
day expressed his hope that Prof. Dumas was setting chemists in the right path ; and although con¬ 
versationally acquainted with the subject, yet he had been by no means prepared for the multi¬ 
tude of analogies pointed out. Mr. Grove spoke of the importance of the views ; as, by knowing 
the extreme compounds, it might serve as a guide in experiments, and as a check to the results. 
He adverted to the allotropic condition of substances when their principal characters were changed, 
but their chemical qualities were unaltered; thus, carbon in the state of diamond had a change of 
property so complete that it had one of the properties of metals given or transferred to it by its 
conducting power for electricity under these conditions, and its other forms were states resistant to 
electric passage. He thought this fact, of certain bodies having two sets of physical properties, 
with greatly differing character, might, with this law of the substitution of one set of chemical 
qualities for another in a compound group, give the hope of the great realization of some of the 
ideas embodied in the views of the possible transformation of one body, at will, so as to possess the 
properties of all others .—Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1S52, p. 167. 

Iron and Zinc, page 325—Elias Baker’s hematite ore in central Pennsylvania (Alleghany Fur¬ 
nace, etc.) is mingled with zinc and makes a superior bar iron when smelted with charcoal, but a 
rotten iron when smelted with coke. (H. N. Burroughs.) Merion Furnace has been making iron of 
| hematite ore mixed with J zinc-iron refuse of the Newark works in New Jersey, which refuse con¬ 
tains 2 per cent of zinc and is sold at $6.00 per ton. A hundred tons of the iron so made worked 
equal to the best Baltimore iron. (Dr. Eckert ) 


ORE. 

DIVISION II. 

IRON AS AN ORE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

INTRODUCTION. 

To classify the ores of the United States it is needful to 
distinguish the geological belts or regions into which the 
surface is divided. The commonest terms are the best where 
they involve no error; and as the terms primary, secondary, 
tertiary continue to express well enough the largest divisions 
of geological time, or groups of geological formations, they will 
he employed without apology. The Primary rocks form a back 
bone to the Atlantic seaboard; the Secondary rocks cover the 
centre of the country; the Tertiary rocks spread around the 
edges. The Primary are destitute of fossils and show no traces 
of ancient animal or vegetable life, excepting in the presence 
of phosphorus and carbon in certain peculiar forms; the Second¬ 
ary and Tertiary rocks are full of fossils, layer upon layer, life 
upon life, creation after creation, a scale of which each number 
is an advance upon the rest, a Jacob’s ladder on which the form- 
angels ascend and at the top of it the Son-of-man. The Prima¬ 
ries are all metamorphosed or changed from their original state 
as muds, clays, marls, sands, gravels, osars, bogs, iron sediments, 
metallic precipitations and what else, into clayslate, chlorite, 
talc, mica slates, breccias, gneiss, granite, marble, dolomite, ser¬ 
pentine, specular and magnetic iron ore, and what not; their 
stratification or bed-plates so squeezed, bent, fractured, mashed 
together, overturned, infiltrated, crystallized and split crosswise 
into roofing slates or building stones as to make their examina¬ 
tion difficult and uncertain. The Secondaries are sometimes 
metamorphosed also, and in such cases are almost undistinguish- 
able from the primaries. The Tertiaries are very seldom so 
affected, and never in the United States, unless it be in the 
Pocky Mountains. 

This met amorphic action has-been the production of an 

333 


334 


rART II.-DIVISION II. 


unknown agency; it lias been fashionable to say fire ; it is 
coming into fashion tD say water. In the neighborhood of 
trap-dykes and.other so-called tire rocks the change is usually 
seen in perfection. But chemical action is now known to he a 
sufficient cause for the grandest metamorpliic phenomena. It is 
no longer proper to speak of marble as a joilutonic or tire rock ; 
it is a 'primary rock only in the sense of changed , or crystalline. 
Serpentine was once called a tire rock, hut now it is settled to 
he a chemical production under a warm sea. Good geologists 
look upon mountains of granite and sienite no longer as 
uphursts of molten matter from the interior of the planet, but 
as sedimentary rocks hardened and crystallized by gentle heat 
and acid water, and even regard veins of quartz as infiltrations 
from above rather than ejections from beneath. The occurrence 
of the precious metals, copper, silver, lead and even gold is ex¬ 
plained by many who are authorized to speak as a precipitation in 
crevices from overlying waters or as original deposits at the bottom 
of the ancient seas. The prejudice instilled by our familiarity 
with iron in a molten state has left it hitherto an exception to 
this rule ; as a prejudice in favor of the igneous origin of all 
metallic veins obliged geologists to adopt the theory of gaseous im¬ 
pregnation to explain u fahlbands” or rocks through which pyrites 
is disseminated. But such a prejudice cannot last. Evidence is 
accumulating year by year sufficient to remove all doubt of the 
common sedimentary origin of iron even under forms which once 
were universally accepted as volcanic. Some of this evidence will 
be presented to the reader in the following pages, not in the 
well-ordered detail which would be proper in a book devoted to 
theoretical questions, but incidentally in connection with the 
description of the localities where primary ores abound. 

The point to be here kept in view is of a different and practi¬ 
cal kind. The different ages of creation have been marked as 
plainly by different metallic deposits forming characteristic 
mining regions, as by stony deposits or by the living creatures 
whose remains they have successively entombed. 1 The Prima- 

1 Prof. Hall of Albany has been among the first to see and announce this important 
principle, At the Providence Meeting of the American Association, in reply to a ques¬ 
tion he stated that all the rocks below the palaeozoic, which occurred in any considerable 
quantities in this country, were metamorphic from sedimentary rocks. Not only the 
great systems of these rocks, but even subordinate portions of them had been deposited 
under somewhat different circumstanfes physically and chemically. Although som ; 


IRON AS AN ORE IN THE UNITED STATES. 


335 


ries show everywhere the outcrops of magnetic, specular and 
red oxide iron ores; the Secondaries contain the sulphurets and 
carbonates of iron; the Tertiaries are the home.of the bog ores. 
Not that these three forms are strictly confined each to its own 
age and excluded from the other two; for the sulphuret of 
iron is found from # the oldest to the latest stratum of the 
earth crust, and bog ores have formed in all ages wherever 
chalybeate waters reached the upper air; but each group of 
orfs characterizes its own group of formations. The Primary 
•age had its own conditions of deposit quite as different from 
those of the Secondary age as these were in their turn from 
those ol the Tertiary or present age ; and these distinctions were 
intensified by subsequent chemical and volcanic agencies. The 
rule of the painter’s pallet here obtains; the colors deaden and 
grow neutral the more they are mixed ; the oldest rocks are the 
simplest and best individualized, while the latest deposits, hav¬ 
ing been oftener worked over, are the most compound and like 
each other. 

It is in primary countries like the Blue Bidge and Black 
Mountains of Virginia and Carolina, or the Adirondacks of 
northern New York, or the great wilderness of northern and 
western Canada, that one must expect the primary or crystalline 
ores. In the Secondary or older unchanged formations one 
must look for beds of carbonate of iron and deposits of brown 
hematite. In the Tertiary or later softer sands and marls one 
meets with bog ore at every step. 

In practical Iron-making the series of ores is somewhat differ¬ 
ent and will be taken in the following order:— 

1. The primary specular, magnetic and red oxide. 

2. The brown hematites. 

3. The fossil ores of the Upper Silurian rocks. 

4. The carbonates ; especially of the coal measures. 

5. The bog ores of the present surface.—But a general 
sketch of the surface geology of the United States is necessary 
before describing these ores in detail. 

shells and sandstones in different formations might have considerable similarity, still 
they presented differences, and these slight differences were wrought in metamorphism. ' 
He was satisfied that when our metamorphic rocks came to be more thoroughly known, 
every group that had had any considerable characteristic in its original formation would 
in its metamorphic state be found to present such peculiar minerals as to characterize 
it as perfectly as the fossiliferous rocks are characterized by their fossils. 


336 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


The continent of North America divides itself geologi¬ 
cally «into two great parts, tlie east and west. These were two 
continental islands down to the close of the Tertiary age. A 
narrow ocean joined the Gulf of Mexico with the Polar Sea. 
All to the east was Primary and Secondary rock ; all to the 
west was an archipelago of mountain peaks and ridges, some¬ 
times lifted high enough to make great tracts of land, and as a 
whole resembling probably the region of the southwest Pacific, 
as to its general distribution of land and water. Among tlfese 
islands and throughout the intervening ocean strait where now** 
the innumerable western branches of the Mississippi and 
McKensie’s Piver flow, were laid to rest successively through 
an unknown length of ages the Cretaceous and Tertiary strata, 
at the same time that they were being deposited in like manner 
in the Atlantic, and over what is now the Savannas of the Ori¬ 
noco, Amazon and Paraguay in South America, between the 
then great island of Brazil and the long strait narrow island 
of the Andes, which must have turned the tidal wave at that 
time northward in very much the same way as the eastern 
coast of South America does now. 

Neglecting the Pocky Mountain Archipelago and regarding 
only the eastern continent of North America, at the begin¬ 
ning of the Tertiary era, w r e see it composed entirely of Second¬ 
ary rocks except a primary back-bone ridge stretching from 
New York city to Augusta, Georgia; another stretching cross¬ 
wise of the first from Maine to Lake Superior; a mass of pri¬ 
mary rocks in northern New York; a small island of primary 
in Missouri; and certain unknown regions in Labrador and 
Greenland, which seem always to have stood above the level of 
the ocean from the earliest times. In these exceptional regions lie 
those deposits of crystalline iron ore which have excited the ad¬ 
miration and cupidity of mankind since the first fabulous reports 
of their existence issued from the forests which still surround 
the most of them. Regarding these primary regions as still 
more ancient islands at the opening of the Secondary era, we 
may imagine them surrounded and sometimes over-capped by 
. the successive secondary formations until the intervening seas 
were filled up level with the surface of the water, forming at 
last a continental swamp in which the coal-measures were 
formed and then the whole was lifted under a side pressure 


IRON AS AN ORE IN THE UNITED STATES.. 


337 


which threw the crust into wrinkles miles in width and hun¬ 
dreds of miles in length, the tops of which were planed away 
leaving the present surface marked with secondary mountains 
and valleys in which the secondary or uncrystallized iron ores 
abound. Then followed as has been stated the deposits of the 
Tertiary age around this continental island of secondary with 
its back-bones of primary rocks. 

These formations are subdivided as follows: 


Quaternary.. 

Tertiary 2 . 

Cretaceous 3 . 

Newer Secondary*. 
(New red sand) .., 
(Permian). 


s- 

a 
'o 
a 
o 

t> 

o> 

m 

i- 

<v 


Old red. 


Devonian, 




Upper Silurian. 


Lower Silurian 
(Taconic.) 


XII. 

XI. 

X. 

IX. 

VIII. 

VII. 

VI. 


IV. 

III. 

II. 

I. 


Or river formations. 

Or marls and sands of the coast. 

'Connecticut Valley, of Middle New Jersey, 

- Newark, Norristown, etc., the Richmond, 
Dan river and Deep river coal-measures. 
Coal-measures, Anthracite and Bituminous. 
Red shale. 

Subcarboniferous Limestone. 
Protocarboniferous or early coal measures. 
White sandstone, making mountains. 

Red sandstone. Catskill group 

Olive sandstones. Portage and Chemung. 

Olive slates. Hamilton group. 

Black slates. Marcellus shales. 

Cement limestones. Upper Helderberg. 
Oriskany sandstone, making hills. 

Limestone. Lower Heidelberg. 

Red shales. Clinton group. 

Marls and fossil ore. 

Slates. 

White sandstone, making mountains. Medina. 

Hudson river slates; 

Magnesian Limestone ; Hematite ores^ 
Potsdam Sandstone and Slates,— 


Primary. 


f Huronian ; western Canada ; Blue Ridge ; northern New York, 
Wisconsin and Missouri specular and magnetic iron ores, 
< red oxide of iron, etc. 

Laurentian ; Eastern Canada and northern New York and per¬ 
haps Carolina ; limestones, conglomerates, slates, etc. 


2 3 Subdivided into IV. Postpleiocene, III. Pleiocene, II. Miocene, I. Eocene by Lyell. 
In Nebraska Hayden & Meek have founded five groups A. Miocene, B. Eocene, C. No. 4 
and 5, D. No. 2 and 3, E. No. 1 of their section. (Proceedings of the Acad. Nat. Hist. 
Phil. Nov. 1856 and in May 1857.) And in New Jersey Cook has five formations of 
Cretaceous underneath his a Tertiary Green-sand to correspond with Hayden & Meek’s 
C. D. E.. to wit, b yellow limestone and green-sand, c iron shell-sand, d green-sand, e 
dark clays, f dark blue, ash and white clays and micaceous sand with thin scams of coal, 
fossil-wood and sulphuret of iron. (Idem May 1857, p. 13.) 

4 Not yet well subdivided in America. In Europe under the lower cretaceous, come 
Regnault’s 7th group Jurassic system of Cote-d’or, 8th group Trias system of Thurin- 
genwald, 9th group Gres de Vosges system of the Rhine, 10th group Pen<5<$n system of 
the Low Countries and Pays de Galles lying on the Coal-measures. The Permian rocks 
of Russia come between these and belong according to some geologists to the Newer 
and according to others to the Older Secondaries or the Coal-measures. The late Disco¬ 
veries of Permian fossils in Illinois, Missouri and other parts of Central North America 
have still further confused the question. 


22 




















333 


PART IT.-DIYISKN II. 


The New York geologists gave local names to most of the 
subdivisions of the Older Secondary rocks, some of which are 
in constant use, as the Hudson river slates (III.), the Pots¬ 
dam sandstone (I.), the Clinton fossil ore (V.), and there¬ 
fore these names will frequently occur in the following pages. 
Prof. II. D. Rogers has substituted a poetical nomenclature for 
the original and convenient enumeration of the same series 
as it shows itself in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, and 
a few of his names such as Primal sandstone (I.), Auroral 
limestone (I.), Matinal slate (III.), Surgent fossil ore 
(V.) will probably stick fast in geological usage, when the 
rest are forgotten. But in a general work like this the older 
European names are equally practical, more widely known, 
more comprehensive, and less open to minute discussion. Those 
in commonest use are Lower Silurian (I. II. III.) Upper Silu¬ 
rian (IV. V. VI.) Devonian (VIII. IX. X. XI.) Old red sand¬ 
stone (IX. X. XI.) Subcarboniferous (XI.) and New red 
sandstone a general term for all the later secondary rocks from 
the Permian to the Cretaceous. No practical man need be mis¬ 
led by the general use of these expressions ; and no geologist 
can be, where the local details are given. Returning now to 
the description of the surface of the country : 

The primary ores of New Jersey, etc., occur like those of nor¬ 
thern New York in a belt of subsilurian rocks forming the 
mountain region, known where it crosses the Hudson river as the 
Highlands, and where it crosses the Delaware river as the 
Easton or Durham hills. Between the Schuylkill at Reading 
and the Susquehanna at Columbia it is represented by the 
Welsh mountain, sinking westwardly beneath two united valleys 
of Lower Silurian rocks which are themselves partially covered 
by a sheet of Permian or New Red deposits. Beyond the 
Susquehanna it rises and widens into the South mountain, and 
after crossing the Potomac becomes the great Blue Ridge of 
Virginia. In North Carolina it spreads grandly over the sur¬ 
face of the State, fills the southeast corner of Tennessee and 
settles into the broad low metamorphic country of northern 
Georgia, to disappear beneath the cretaceous curtain of southern 
Alabama. 

This belt of subsilurian, subpalceozoic , azoic, hypozoic , hypa- 
zoic, laconic , metamorphic , primary or better still since Mur- 


IRON AS AN ORE IN THE UNITED STATES. 


339 


ray's study of its northern outcrop in Canada West, Huronian 
rocks—for by all these names are they known—this central belt 
of short, parallel, half disconnected, half confused mountains of 
nearly the oldest rocks we know, is a great line of demarcation 
in American geology. Uplifting as it does on its two flanks 
the first formations which contain fossils (the Lower Silurian) 
and in fact uplifting the eastern half of the American continent 
a few hundred feet above the waves, it has done this so une¬ 
qually that only the country lying west of it has reaped any 
permanent benefit from the uplift. In that direction lies a con¬ 
tinental region of these older secondary or ancient fossil rocks the 
last of which was coal. Towards the east these older secondary 
rocks had only their edge brought up above the Atlantic, and 
still remain bodily submerged, constituting those astonishing 
deep sea steeps and slopes, hollows and ridges, described in the 
reports of the officers of the Coast Survey. Over these were 
laid in comparatively recent geological times the cretaceous and 
tertiary formations which have been slowly rising and forming 
the broad “ tide water ” or Atlantic coast country of the south¬ 
ern States commencing in New England and terminating in 
Mexico—sweeping round the southern end of the central belt 
of older rocks at Montgomery in Alabama and up the Missis¬ 
sippi, Tennessee and Cumberland valleys -to Paducah and the 
mouth of the Ohio. So we have 

1. The Highland-Southmountain-Blueridge central Huro¬ 
nian belt crossing the great rivers at West Point, Easton, Bead¬ 
ing, Columbia, Harper’s ferry, Charlottesville and Lynchburg, 
and broadening into the Black mountains of western North 
Carolina—everywhere exhibiting beds of magnetic or primary 
iron ores, with zinc and copper; then 

2. On the right of it going south, the Great Yalley, a wide, 
regular, fertile, densely populated, gently undulating plain of 
Lower Silurian rocks, on which stand the inland cities of 
Newffiurg, Easton, Beading, Harrisburg, Chambersburg, Win¬ 
chester, Nashville and Chatanooga in Eastern Tennessee, with a 
multitude of smaller towns and villages, of ancient date (to 
speak with an American tongue), and full of iron-works smelt¬ 
ing brown hematite ore-deposits found principally upon its 
eastern side; then 

3. Crowded to the west of the Great Yalley the Appalachian 


340 


RART II.-DIVISION II. 




mountains ; Outcrops of the Upper Silurian and Devonian 

sandstone formations, going down and coining up in a complicated 
series of waves, covering the surface with a wonderful topo¬ 
graphical picture of long, thin, sharp parallel mountains, all of 
a uniform height (about a thousand feet) with level crest-lines 
drawn against the sky for many miles and notched even down 
to their bases at intervals, streams and rivers of every conceiv¬ 
able size coming out through the deeper notches, and long, nar¬ 
row, secluded rural valleys lying in behind. The bottoms of 
many of these valleys are the upturned edges of the Lower 
Silurian rocks of the Great Valley, coming to the surface along 
steep anticlinal axes of uplift, and bringing with them all the 
elements to form similar brown hematite ore beds ; therefore 
many iron-works are scattered through these Lower Silurian 
limestone Appalachian Valleys. Others consist of monoclinal 
Upper Silurian or Devonian rocks, containing valuable deposits of 
a very different kind, the fossil ore hereafter to be described ; and 
these have also their iron-works, but comparatively few. Then 
4. Behind this Appalachian labyrinth (which is from fifty to 
one hundred miles in width, begins in Canada East, ranges 
through Vermont, southern New York and middle Pennsyl¬ 
vania, crosses the Potomac between Harper’s Ferry and Cum¬ 
berland, occupies the, southern line of Virginia from Abingdon 
to the Cumberland Gap (over into Kentucky), and gradually 
narrows under the cliffs of the Huntsville Mountain to a point 
near Montgomery in middle Alabama), towers the long almost 
unbroken wall of the true Alleghany Mountain crest, where 
the whole bulk of the Devonian and Subcarbonifcrous rocks 
come in, and on their top the gently westward-sloping knife- 
edge of the first or lowest coals. Everywhere about three thous¬ 
and feet above the sea this escarped brim of the Great Basin is 
the true boundary of the Western Country. Over it all roads 
south of Albany climb to reach the West. It is taken in flank 
however by the New York canal and Central railroad, because 
it begins at the Hudson in the grand terminal plateau of the 
Catskill mountain, covers all northwestern Pennsylvania from 
the heads of the Juniata to Lake Erie, and all western Virginia, 
and eastern Middle Tennessee, and terminates southward in a 
similar but much narrower plateau in Alabama. Along its 
eastern edge crop out the subcarboniferous limestone and iron 


IRON AS AN ORE IN TIIE UNITED STATES. 


341 


ore of No. XI. back of wliicli lie tlie enormous fields of coal 
with tlieir included iron ores and surface deposits of bog. Lastly 
returning to the east 

5. We have the cretaceous, tertiary, and post-tertiary 
deposits to the left of the Great Central Belt as we go south, 
covering the southern half of New Jersey, all Delaware and 
eastern Maryland, eastern Virginia, North and South Carolina 
(up to the gold region), two-thirds of Georgia and Alabama, 
nearly all of Mississippi, the western parts of Tennessee and 
Kentucky between the Mississippi and the Tennessee rivers, 
and west of the Mississippi river all the country south of Mis¬ 
souri (except a part of Arkansas) as far as the Rio Grande; and 
northward, all between the 99° of longitude and the Rocky 
Mountains, far into the British possessions, excepting only the 
Black Hills and a few other and still smaller islands of older 
rocks which stood above the cretaceous and tertiary oceans, or 
were projected through its deposits from below. Bog iron ore 
characterizes this great belt in New Jersey, Delaware and 
Maryland, and in the West. 


Meteoric iron being found in the United States ought to be treated as one of 
its ores, but its scarcity makes its practical importance so infinitely small that it 
would be absurd to treat it so. It is moreover an exceptional substance coming from 
the sky upon the earth and therefore its discovery cannot be regulated on geologi¬ 
cal principles. Its intrinsic interest however to speculative minds, its intimate-rela¬ 
tions to the primary ores, and its bold suggestion (especially since the exploration 
of the Lake Superior native copper region) that perhaps immense masses of native 
iron also may exist as part of this earth’s envelope, justify us in reviewing its pheno¬ 
mena at some length ; and this is the fitting place. 

Professor C. U Shephard of New Haven has published the following catalogue 


of meteoric irons with the date of their fall: 

1. Senegal, Africa. Found 1717. 

2. Krasnojarsk, Government of Jeniseisk, Siberia . “ 1749. 

3. Saxony (Steinbach, near Eibenstock).... . “ 1751. 

4. Agram, Croatia.Fell May 26, 1751. 

5. Tecuman, Otumpa, Argentine Rep., S America.Found 1783. 

6. Bahia (Bemdego), Brazil. “ 1784. 

7. Xiquipilco, Toluca, Mexico. “ 1784. 

8. Zacatecas, Mexico . • . “ 1792. 

9. Cape of Good Hope. “ 1793. 

10. Bitberg, in the Eifel, Rhenish Prussia. “ 1805. 

11. Texas (Red River), U. S. A. “ 1808. 

12. Rasgata, New Granada, South America. “ 1810. 

13. Elbogen, Bohemia. “ 1811. 

















342 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


14. Durango, Mexico. Found 1811. 

15. Lenarto, Saroscher Comitat. Hungary. “ 1814. 

16. Lockport, New York, U. S. A. “ 1818. 

17. Burlington, Otsego county New York, U. S. A. “ 1819. 

18. Guildford, North Carolina, U. S. A. “ 1820. 

19. Atacama, Bolivia. “ 1827. 

20. Caille, Dep. du Var, France. “ 1828. 

21. Bohumilitz, Prachiner Circle, Bohemia. “ 1829. 

22. Claiborne county Alabama, U. S. A. “ 1834. 

23. Dickson county Tennessee, U S. A. Fell July-30, 1835. 

24. Black Mountain, Buncombe Co. N. Carolina, U. S. A... Found 1835. 

25. Asheville, Buncombe county North Carolina. “ 1839. 

26. Putnam county Georgia, U. S. A. “ 1839. 

27. Cocke county (and Sevier county), Tennessee. “ 1840. 

28. Newberry (Ruff’s Mountain), South Carolina, U. S. A... “ 1841. 

29. Green county (Babb’s Mills), Tennessee, U. S. A. “ 1842. 

30. St. Augustine’s Bay, Madagascar. “ 1843. 

31. Arva, (Szlanicza) Arvzer Comitat, Hungary. “ 1843. 

32. Otsego county New York, U. S. A. “ 1845. 

33. De Kalb county Tennessee, U. S. A. “ 1845. 

34. Carthage, Tennessee, U. S. A. “ 1846. 

35. Chester county South Carolina, U. S. A. “ 1847. 

36. Braunau, Koniggretzer Circle, Bohemia. Fell July 14, 1847. 

37. Seeliisgen, Neumark, Brandenberg. Found 1847. 

38. Schwetz, Prussia. “ 1850. 

39. Salt River, Kentucky, U. S. A. “ 1850. 

40. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, IT. S. A... “ 1850. 

41. Seneca Falls, Cayuga county, U. S. A.Found since 1850. 

42. Lion River, Namaqua Land, South Africa.........' “ “ “ 

43. Union county Georgia, U. S. A. “ “ “ 

44. Tazewell, Claiborne county Tennessee, U. S. A... “ “ “ 

45. Santa Rosa, New Mexico. “ “ “ 

46. Tuczon, Sonora. “ “ “ 

47. Chili. “ “. “ 

48. Haywood county North Carolina, U. S. A. “ “ M 

49. Orange River, South Africa.^. “ “ “ 

50. Madoc, Canada West.Found 1854. 

51. Mississippi, U. S. A. “ 18—. 

Doubtful Meteoric Irons (several of which are destitute of nickel , chromium 
and cobalt , and do not afford the true Widmannstaattian figures ; or if containing 
the usual meteoric metals , the masses have been altered and disguised bg a strong 
artificial heat.) 

Randolph county North Carolina, U. S. A., 1822. 

Sterlitamal, Orenberg. Russia, 1825. 

Bedford county Pennsylvania, U. S. A., 1828. 

Scriba, New York, U. S. A., 1830. 

St. Matthews, South Carolina, U. S. A. 

Walker county Alabama, U. S. A., 1839. 

Ilomony Creek, Buncombe county North Carolina, U. S. A., 1845. 

































IRON AS AN ORE IN THE UNITED STATES. 


343 


Montgomery, Vermont, U. S. A. Meteoric Ore. 

. Achen (Aix-la-Chapelle), France. 

Collina, de Brianza, Brazil. 

Long Creek, Jefferson county Tennessee, U. S A., 1853. 

Poictiers, France. 

The whole subject of meteoric iron is discussed in extenso by Herr C. J. B. 
Karsten, in a memoir “ iiber feuer-meteore' 1 ' 1 read in the Academy of Sciences at 
Berlin Jan. 13, 1853. He gives, as all do, to Chladni the credit of setting at rest 
the question of the celestial origin of these erratic masses; suggests that we know 
nothing of the changes they undergo in their descent; divides them into meteor- 
stone and meteor-iron masses; leaves to future science the task of determining to 
which of these classes those belonged which plunged through space against the 
earth in its antepalaeozoic, palaeozoic, secondary or tertiary ages; and excuses 
Chladni for not anticipating the fact that an exhaustive analysis of meteors has 
determined the presence of nickel and cobalt not to be a sine qua non in the case 
of some meteoric masses of iron the fall of which has been observed, and therefore 
not to be a shibboleth to try those by of whose possible descent there is no record. 5 
He shows how the common dark (subsilicate of the black oxide of iron) rind of 
meteors may be weathered off in their descent and be therefore also no criterion. 
Although the observed fallings of stone meteors have been much more numerous 
than of iron masses, yet it is the iron masses and not the meteor stones that have 
been found upon the surface of the earth. Many a meteor may have been so 
oxidized while lying countless ages on the surface of the earth as to have lost its 
original nature and form ; and many a massive meteor, thrown off when the rind of 
its mother orb burst on cooling, and itself reaching the earth so quickly that its 
heat was still great, may have cooled under the action of the atmospheric oxygen 
into a very different body from what it was in space. Many a block of stone may 
lie on plain or mountain side among the earthborn rubbish of the cliff, without 
exciting a suspicion of its heavenly origin, as many a mind of the divinest mould 
lives unsuspected in a savage state or walks unrecognized among the crowds of 
city life. There may have been ages of its history when clouds of these meteors of 
both kinds met the earth, and spread themselves in blocks or masses or flattened 
layers on its surface. And if so, subsequent deposits must have covered them up, 
and denudation may have swept them away again or made sections of them, 
exposing their outcrops like terrestrial beds of rock or iron ore. The geologist at 
all events must be prepared to encounter cases of this kind. 

5 Prof. Peter A. Brown of Lafayette College published in 1844 an essay or lecture on 
solid meteors their comparative velocities and heights, the cause of their heat and four¬ 
teen theories of their origin. Halley’s in the Phil. Trans. No. 30: Luke Howard’s in his 
Meteorology: Soldat6’s of Siena; Dr. Reynolds’ in Silliman’s Journal vol. i. p. 266,1818; 
Dr. Blagden’s Phil. Trans. 1784; Dalton’s in his Meteorol. Obser. Manchester 1834, 
p. 243; Brewster’s, Ed. Phil. Journal; Hutton and Laplace—from the moon; Newton— 
from comets’ tails; Chladni, Franklin and Rittenhouse—planetary bodies; Ferguson, 
Olbers, etc.—fragments of an exploded planet; Quetelet—a planetary zone of aerolites; 
Boubee—an exploded comet. In the Edin. Phil. Journal 223 vol. i. is a list of 177 
meteoric stones that have fallen from the earliest times to the year 1819. M. Messier in 
1777 saw at noonday a prodigious number of black spots pass across the sun’s disc, 
vol. 12, Mem. Roy. Acad. Brussels. See also the splendid daylight pyrotechnic exhi¬ 
bition seen in 1820 by the subprefect at Embrun described in the Annales de Chimie 
Oct. 1825. 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


344 

Such Karsten thinks to be the nature of the curious iron deposit near Thorn in 
Central Europe, discovered by Herr Grodski of Wolfsmiihle in 1852 and covering at 
least 700 acres of his ground, within 4 inches of the top of the soil. The ore 
outside was the common brown and yellow iron stone, but when freshly broken was 
peculiar of its kind, looking as if half melted, partly compact partly porous, a black 
lava-like substance glassy and slaggy in its whole appearance. But the first steps 
of an analysis showed that it could have been no result of artificial smelting, mixed 
as the native iron was with an olivine mineral. The mixture of unchanged meteoric 
iron and meteoric stone was so fine that when the mass was reduced to powder a 
magnet would not take up all the iron free of the olivine. No iron works were ever 
heard of in the neighborhood of Thorn, nor could a vast number of them have 
accomplished such a result. The ore overlies the whole area in bars or plates two 
or three feet long, three to six inches wide and two or three inches thick, shoved 
against and between each other in one place where there is a ravine and water 
course for 170 feet of face, but elsewhere separated by greater or less spaces; all 
lie on sand and scarce one appears above the soil. Most of the meteors seem there¬ 
fore to have fallen in the ravine, where the cubic contents of only half the mass as 
measured would amount to 4,800 cubic feet or 360 tons, and the w'hole mass as 
known in 1853 could not be less than 1,000 tons, the fall of which one mile further 
to the w T est would have destroyed the whole town of Wolfsmiihle had it then 
existed and the tradition of the event would have been indelible from the oral or 
written history of the land. As no such tradition exists, the starry avalanche must 
have happened in a wilderness of woods, unless the story of old Sebastian Munster 
relates to this event. • “ In the year 1572,” he writes, “on the 9th of January w r hen 
the Wixel flowed three days blood-color there happened -at Thorn in Prussia about 
9 o’c. at night a dreadful earthquake with a mighty storm of wind and thereupon a 
w aterspout which swelled the stream, broke down the city wall, carried off 19 joch 
of bridge and drowmed 30£) people, hailing ten pound stones which slew many 
persons and burning up with a stream of fire from heaven the city of Kornhaus.” 6 
Thousands of tons of iron falling from miles of height upon a frozen earth must 
have imitated an earthquake very well. 

The perfectly artificial furnace-slag-like parts of the meteoric iron at Thorn has 
of course resisted the action of the atmosphere even better than the native iron 
interior of the masses, but as a whole it might not require many centuries more to 
reduce the whole deposit to the ordinary condition of browm iron ore. This slag 
proves conclusively that the iron was in a fluid and oxidizing condition when it 
struck the earth. Beyond the rust of the oxygen of the atmosphere the mass of 
native iron and stone could have been only mechanically combined, but the oxygen 
of the atmosphere formed oxidulated and common magnetic iron which then 
reacted as a flux to smelt together the native iron and stone, which without this, 
flux could not have been so smelted together, and this part of the process must 
have taken place upon the spot where the masses fell, for the soft slag has taken up 
grains of quartz from the sand upon which it fell, and even the charcoal of vegeta¬ 
tion is visible in the masses not completely reduced to slag. The native iron show's 
no trace of a slaggy or porous structure but is only a little drusy, whereas the 
altered parts are full of pores, produced by the disengagement of air, carbonic acid 

* In his Cosmographie Basel, 1628, lib. v. p. 1290; but Zernecke in 1727 whites that 
he finds no notice of this event in the Actis Thoruniensibus ; see Chladni’s Schrift fiber 
Feuer Meteore. 


IKON AS AN ORE IN THE UNITED STATES. 


345 


gas, and perhaps hydrogen, and facilitating the entrance of Meteoric Ore. 
water and the reduction of the masses to common ore. 

The specific gravity of the masses is 3.8215, but in powder 5.3012, and the mag¬ 
net separates the powder into 54.75 iron and 45.25 stone, the specific gravity of the 
iron being 7.0035 and that of the stone 2.9995. There is no sulphuret of iron in 
the slag mass, and only l per cent in the iron mass; muriatic acid developing a 
slight and soon-vanishing odor of sulphuretted hydrogen ; the iron itself is per¬ 
fectly pure and tree from all admixture, containing neither Carbon, Sulphur, Phos¬ 
phorus, Chlorine, Arsenic, Lead, Copper, Nickel, Cobalt, Silicium nor any other earthy 
base, and only doubtful traces of Manganese. The partially altered mass contains an 
undeterminable percentage of Carbon and Sulphur, but a considerable quantity of 
Silicium. The unaltered stony part contains neither Sulphur, Boron, Phosphorus, 
Iluor, Chlorine, Chrome, nor any alkali, and only traces of bitter earth and the 
minutest quantity of oxide of manganese ; and when reduced to powder its analy¬ 
sis was: 37.55 of Silica, 44.23 of Alumina, 17.50 of Lime, 0.53 of oxidulated iron, 
0.06 oxide of manganese, 0.10 of sweet earth and 0.03 of bitter earth. Three 
parts of its oxygen is therefore in its sand and 4 parts in the bases; and the oxygen 
in the Alumina to the oxygen in the lime is as 4 to 1, forming a peculiar silicate 
elsewhere unknown. The slag when analyzed was found to consist of 19.05 of 
silica, 18.83 of Alumina, 5.44 of lime, 56.67 of oxidulated iron, and 0.01 of 
the three other substances above-mentioned, an accidental and variable arrange¬ 
ment. Of the 56.67 Ox. I. 42.51 was iron regulus, or native iron. 

Another well-known fall of meteoric iron at Schwetz must have happened at a 
different time from that at Thorn for its iron is without a mixture of stone, and 
contains 5.77 Nickel, 1.05 Cobalt, not a trace of either of which metals can be 
obtained from that of Thorn. 

Following up the clew which Karsten finds for us in this meteor-fall of Thorn, 
we reach the ground of a clear judgment upon all so-called native iron masses, that 
they may and therefore must be meteoric, for here are masses of pure iron cer¬ 
tainly meteoric without cobalt or nickel; and here also are such masses in- 
process of passing into red oxide of iron ore. Hence whenever a pure or native 
iron mass is found, by which must be carefully understood not pure iron ore, but 
• pure iron—not pure oxide of iron whether specular or magnetic, but pure iron 
itself—it must be held of heavenly origin, fallen recently, and already in the pro¬ 
cess of becoming red earth. Hence the impossibility of finding meteors of pure 
iron embedded as fossils in the rocks of any but the most recent times. 

In the Annual of scientific facts for 1856 7 is a notice of a report of Dr. A. A. 
Hayes of Boston upon a bed of so called native iron ore, pure and malleable, used 
by the blacks of Liberia near Bexley, Bassa County, a specimen of which was sent 
to Wm. Coppinger Esq. of Philadelphia in 1853 by the Rev. Mr. Davis of Liberia, 
who conversed with many of the natives and was assured by them that it was ore 
actually broken from the rock. 

Dr. Hayes’ report is as follows :—The specimen had been drilled and filed when 
I first saw it. The filed surface arrested my attention, as the arrangement of the 
particles of the iron resembled that of the unalloyed part of meteoric iron, and was 
unlike that of any iron that had been hammered or rolled. Artificial iron is pre¬ 
sented to us under two forms; first, that of crude or cast iron, which, always 
granular, is brittle, though sometimes malleable in a slight degree; second, wrought 


7 Boston 1857, p. 303. 


340 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


or ductile iron, the product of refining cither cast iron, or as the result of skillful 
reduction from an ore, in a forge fire, by alternate heating and hammering. In 
either case, the particles of the iron have certain definite forms, arranged as crys¬ 
tals in the cast iron, which are broken down and rearranged in the ductile iron, as 
plates, or scales, or longitudinal fibres. The native iron presents only very minute 
crystalline grains, which have not been broken or blended. Their color is lighter 
grey than that of any hammered iron. They are without much lustre, resembling 
iron which has been aggregated by electrical deposition. The mass is tough; and 
when a fragment is broken, repeated bending and doubling is required, and the 
fracture is hackly. The texture is not uniform. Some parts are less compact than 
other portions, rendering the specific gravity of the mass less than that of other 
iron. This inequality is due in part to the presence in the mass of crystalline 
quartz, magnetic oxide of iron, and a zeolite mineral, having a soda basis in part; 
conclusively proving that the iron has never been melted artificially. [And there¬ 
fore proving quite as conclusively that it had never flowed out of the earth as a 
liquid mass. While its purity is equally good evidence against its sedimentary 
origin.] Its chemical composition is —Pure Iron 98.40; quartz grains, magnetic 
oxide, iron crystals, and zeolites 1.60.® There are no other metals present: a fact 
which prevents us from placing this iron in the class of meteorlites [unless we refer 
to the Thorn shower]. And the absence of carbon in any form removes all doubt 
in regard to its being possibly of artificial formation. Every form of iron which 
has been the subject of manufacture, contains carbon. And it is an interesting 
observation in this connection, that, in the large number of samples of ancient 
irons and those produced by semi-civilized people, which I have analyzed, not only 
has carbon been present, but the proportion was always larger than exists in the 
iron of commercial people. It appears that the rude workmen, in producing this 
useful metal, stop at that point where the half-refined iron is sufficiently ductile to 
take, under the hammer, the required form; while the purer irons are produced 
later in history, when the more highly prized qualities become known. [The 
Indian wootz however is no doubt a very ancient as it is the very best of iron.] 

The evidence which has been collected respecting the locality and history of this 
iron tends to show that the natives of the vicinity have drawn their supplies from 
it for many years. Various implements are now in the United States which have 
undoubtedly been manufactured from native iron. Mr. Davis says, in the letter 
accompanying this specimen : “ I am told by the natives that it is plentiful, and 
about three days’ walk from our present residence. It is obtained by digging, and 
breaking rocks. It is also said to be in large lumps. In these parts, the natives 
buy no iron, but dig it out of the ground, or break the rocks and get it, as the case 
may be ” The Rev. John Seys, in a letter published in the African Repository for 
June, 1851, says: “Such is the purity of the iron ore obtained by the natives of 
Africa in the immediate vicinity of Liberia, and which they represent as being 
abundant, that they have no furnaces. They need none. All their rude agricul¬ 
tural and warlike instruments are made by them of ore so pure that, when heated, 
it becomes sufficiently malleable to admit of being wrought into any shape or form. 
They make knives, bill-hooks, war-cutlasses, spears, axes, hoes, etc., out of this ore, 
without the process of smelting.” Mr. James Hall, under date of July, 1855, writes : 
“ The natives manufacture iron in quant'ties in the interior. It is very soft and 

( 8 Mr. Davis’s description in 1857 noticed in Annual, p. 370, 1858, from Boston Nat. 
Hist. Soc. calls it a mass as large as a man’s hat, craggy, cellular, part ore and of a 
yellow color, which well describes a meteoric mass.) 


IRON AS AN ORE IN THE UNITED STATES. 


347 


pure. I have often been told by the beach natives lYLeteoric Ore. 
who have travelled inland, that ‘ they take plenty wood 

and coal; make a big pile; put tone (stone) on him; then more wood, 
more coal, and more tone; then set him on fire, and burn him trong, 
two, three days ; then iron come up.’ This is the talk all along the shore ; that is, 
the reliable talk. Although many say they find the pure iron, I am sure no pure 
iron was ever found in Liberia or its vicinity in any considerable quantity, before I 
left in 1840.” Strictly speaking, Mr. Tracy remarks, an “ore” is a rock composed 
of or containing a metal in chemical combination with some other substance. 
“ Smelting ” is the reduction of a metal in an ore by the application of heat to its 
metallic form. A fire like that described above could never produce a heat intense 
enough to “smelt” any ore of iron; and besides, the result of smelting iron ore is 
always cast , and not malleable iron. But if in “breaking the rocks,” the rocks 
should not readily yield to blows, it would be a very natural device to place it on a 
very hot fire. The result would be that the rock would crack into pieces and the 
iron would be released ; and being heavier than the decrepitated stone, it might, 
especially if stirred a little, fall together and become welded into one mass. This, 
beyond all question, is the usual process in the mountainous regions south of St. 
John’s River. Mr. Tracy further says, there is reason to suppose that native iron 
exists in other parts of Africa, especially the western—Adanson, a French naturalist, 
whose “ Natural History of Senegal ” was published in the latter part of the last 
century, asserts that the natives of that region make implements of it. A descrip¬ 
tion, probably derived from him, of the native iron of Senegal, applies well to the 
lumps found on the “New Jersey purchase” and at False Cape. Further south and 
east, beyond the Niger, the Rev. J. L. Wilson founcj. that the Pangwe people, who 
are gradually migrating from the inland mountains towards the coast near the equa¬ 
tor, have “iron of their own,” of superior quality, usually in “pieces about the size 
and somewhat in the shape of a horse-fleam, and probably produced from lumps of 
native iron of nearly uniform size.” At Loando, about nine degrees south, the 
natives of the interior sell iron implements of their own manufacture for European 
goods, at prices less than the cost of the European iron which would be required to 
make them. In South Africa, the Rev. Dr. Adamson, long a missionary there, 
informs me, meteoric iron is abundant; but whether it has been found to be me¬ 
teoric by analysis, or only presumed to be so, because all native iron has hitherto 
proved so, I am not informed. The existence of native iron has often been asserted. 
Pallas was said to have found it in Siberia, and others in South America, New Mexi¬ 
co, Virginia, and other regions. But all these, so far as they have been analyzed, 
have proved to be meteoric. The native iron of Liberia, therefore, is a substance 
perfectly new to the world of science and of art. Its existence in large deposits is 
as probable as was that of native copper before the opening of the mines on Lake 
Superior. Native copper had been known for ages to exist; but till the opening 
of those mines, it had never been found in quantities sufficient to be of much com¬ 
mercial importance. Now, it is found in great abundance, and some of it in masses 
so immense that the miners are troubled with their vastness. Whether the native 
iron of Liberia exists in similar abundance, can be determined only by an actual 
examination of the country. But if large quantities can be found at the water’s 
edge, or even twenty-five miles inland, its commercial value must be immense. 

Such is Dr Hayes’ view. Certain objections have been expressed in brackets in 
the body of the text. The African iron could not be native because no known 
chemical or sedimentary precipitation would have deposited,'and no volcanic pro- 


348 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


cess would have ejected it in this form, nor would it have been preserved from rust 
in our atmosphere. If the natives of the interior knew how to make, pretty pure 
iron (as we know they did and still do) and if this iron be not so made but actually 
found with rock, then iron and rock must be of meteoric origin, and the purity of 
the iron is no objection since the Thorn meteors are equally pure. As if to remove 
the only practical objection to this conclusion the following notice in the same 
Annual, p. 306, is accidentally appended to the report of Dr. Hayes : 

Native Iron of Canaan, Connecticut. —In all the mineralogical works pub¬ 
lished during the last few years, native iron has been registered as occurring at 
Canaan, Conn. The authority for this statement rested on a single specimen pre¬ 
served in the cabinet of Yale College. After the results of the examination of the 
Liberian iron by Dr. Hayes were made known, a portion of this specimen was 
placed in his hands by Professor Silliman for examination. Dr. Hayes has since 
shown in the most indubitable manner, that the Canaan iron is cast-iron, containing 
charcoal, plumbago, and other impurities. 9 

Even cast iron has its analogue among meteorites, to wit, in the Niakoruak 
specimen described by Forchammer, discovered by Rinck, in possession of the 
Esquimaux at Niakoruak, lat 69° 25', by whom it had been found at a short dis¬ 
tance from their hut, on a stony flat through which the river Annorritok flows into 
the sea. It weighed 21 pounds. The specific gravity of the whole mass 7.00, that 
of small fragments varied from 7.02 to 7.07. It was so hard that it could neither 
be filed nor sawed, but was very brittle. Its fracture was granular; it took a high 
polish, and showed beautiful Widmannstatt’s figures when acted upon by nitric 
acid. By treatment with acids it evolves sulphuretted hydrogen, (or hydrogen of 
bad odor) exactly like inferior cast iron. At first iron alone is dissolved, and a 
black matter consisting of minute crystals is left behind, which eventually dissolves, 
and a black powder, which proved to be carbon, floats through the fluid, while, in 
place of the fragment of the iron, a grey porous mass amounting to 1 or 2 per cent 
of the stone is left. It contained iron, 93.39 ; nickel, 1.56 ; cobalt, 0.25 ; copper 
0.45 ; sulphur, 0.67 ; phosphorus, 0.18 ; carbon, 1.69 ; silicon, 0.38 ; total, 98.57. 

Besides these there are found metals of the Alumina group (with oxides soluble 
in caustic alkalies), of the Zinconia group (with oxides insoluble in alkalies, but pre¬ 
cipitated from their salts by sulphate of potash), and of the Yttria group (oxides 
insoluble in alkalies, soluble in carbonate of ammonia, and not precipitated bv sul¬ 
phate of potash). The two latter groups, which have not been previoysly found in 
meteorites, form the principal part of the undissolved grey porous mass, but their 
quantity is so small that the author has been unable to determine with certaintv 
what members of these groups are present. The crystalline grains, which are less 
soluble than the rest of the mass, consist of iron and carbon, with small quantities 
of sulphur and phosphorus. Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to stop the 
solution at the proper point, so as to insure this substance being pure, Forchammer 
has made two analyses, and found 11.06 and 7.23 per cent of carbon. A carbonate 

9 A stone said to have been overgrown and thus preserved in the heart of an old wil¬ 
low tree blighted by a storm in 1839 was presented at a meeting of the British Associa¬ 
tion by Sir Roderick Murchison, and being found to contain nickel, cobalt and manganese, 
was pronounced a genuine meteorite. But Dj. Percy proved it to be a piece of furnace 
slag like other pieces lying round the foot of the tree, containing likewise nickel, cobalt, 
etc. (Scien. Annual. Boston : p. 326 ; 1856.) This gives the positive side of the same 
warning not to make the presence of these metals a final proof of meteoric origin, any 
more than their absence a final proof of terrestrial origin. 


IKON AS AN OKE IN THE UNITED STATES. 


349 


of iron having the formula Fe 2 C, would contain 9.66 ]YEet60ric Ore. 
per cent of carbon, and this is probably its constitution. 

Its specific gravity is 7.172. This meteoric iron belongs to a very rare variety, and 
contains so large a quantity of carbon that it may be called meteoric cast iron. 
That found in Greenland by Parry, as well as another specimen mentioned by 
Forchammer was perfectly malleable. 1 Parry’s Esquimaux meteoric knife and har¬ 
poon are in the British Museum. 2 

Berzelius found in four meteoric stones traces of tin, cobalt, copper, phos¬ 
phorus, potash and soda. Prof. Apjohn found in the Adair meteorite cobalt, 
chrome, magnesia and lime in small quantities 

The Otumba meteorite discovered by Rubin de Celis near Buenos Ayres in 
1783 weighed about 15 tons and was cellular. The Don’s imagination saw upon it 
impressions of gigantic human hands and feet, and those of birds, but his reason 
told him that no hand or foot of man or beast could bear the touch of the celestial 
metal in its semi-fluid state. lie conjectured therefore that the impressions were 
original to the ground on which it fell, without reflecting that if so the marks upon 
the mass must have become in basso-relievo. Such is the naivete of the untrained 
observers of all times and lands. A piece of meteoric iron three-quarters of a ton 
in weight in the British Museum is supposed to be a portion of this mass. Others 
are there from Brazil, Mexico, Bohemia, Saxony, the Milanese and parts of Africa. 3 

Meteors. —“Frequent notice is taken in the Chinese Annals of the Fall of 
meteoric stones. See Voy. a Peking par De Guignes, t. i. p. 195-250.” (969, p. 

492. Marsden’s Travels of Marco Polo.) 

Mr. R. P. Grey communicates to the Philosophical Magazine the following account 
of the fall of a large mass of meteoric iron at Oorrientes, in South America, as 
given in a letter, by an observer of the phenomenon, a Mr. II. A. Symonds. He 
says: In 1844, I accompanied the Corrientine army in its invasion of the province 
of Entre Rios. One morning in January, when encamped on the river Mocorita, 
near the Corrientine frontier, we were all awaked from a profound sleep, and every 
man of the army of 1,400 sprung on his feet at the same moment. An aerolite was 
falling. The light that accompanied it was intense beyond description. It fell in 
an oblique direction, probably at an angle of about 60° with the earth, and its 
course was from east to west. 

Its appearance was that of an oblongated sphere of fire, and its track from the 
sky was marked by a fiery streak, gradually fading in proportion to the distance 
from the mass, but as intensely luminous as itself in its immediate vicinity. The 
noise that accompanied it. though unlike thunder, or anything else that I have 
heard, was unbroken, exceedingly loud and terrific. Its fall was accompanied by a 
most sensible movement of the atmosphere, which I thought at first repellent from 
the falling body, and afterwards it became something of a short whirlwind. At the 
same time I and my companions all agreed that we had experienced a violent elec¬ 
tric shock ; but probably this sensation may have been but the effect on our drowsy 
senses of the indescribably intense light and noise. The spot where it fell was 
about one hundred yards from the extreme right of our division, and perhaps four 
hundred from the place where I had been sleeping. Accompanied by our general 
(Dr. Joaquin Madauaga), I went within ten or twelve yards from it, which was as 
near as its heat allowed us to approach. 

The mass appeared to be considerably imbedded in the earth, which was so 

1 Poggendorff’s Annalen, vol. xciii. p. 155, in Annual of Scien. Disc. 

* Alexander, vol. i. p. 97. 3 Alexander, p. 97. 


350 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


heated that it was quite bubbling around it. Its size above the earth was perhaps 
a cubic yard, and its shape was somewhat spherical; it was intensely ignited and 
radiantly light, and in*this state it continued until early dawn, when the enemy 
forced us to abandon it to continue our march. I may mention that, at the time 
of its fall, the sky above us was beautifully clear, and the stars were perhaps more 
than usually bright; there had been sheet lightning the previous evening. 

I never afterwards had an opportunity of revisiting the Mocorita, for our perma¬ 
nent encampment was thirty-five leagues to the north of that pass, between which 
and our encampment the country was entirely depopulated by our long war ; but 
as the spottwhere the aerolite fell was known to many of our subaltern officers, 
who were frequently sent to observe the frontier of Entre Rios, I have heard them 
describe it as a “ piedra de fierro that is, a stone of iron; and I once provided 
one of the most intelligent of them with a hammer in order that he might bring 
me a sample of it. On his return he told me it was so excessively hard that 
the hammer bent and w r as broken in unsuccessful attempts to break off a piece. 4 

Meteoric iron was discovered by two Indians twenty-two leagues southeast of 
Atacama in Chili thirty or forty years ago, and mistaken for silver, being white 
and soft enough to cut. Under this impression Jose Maria Chaile, one of them, 
extracted two of the masses, each weighing about 25 lbs., and buried them in a 
place now forgotten. The metal came afterwards into request by curiosos and by 
blacksmiths, and nearly all of it has been removed. The spot where the masses fell 
is about a league southwest of the w r ater holes of Imilac in the heart of an arid and 
desolate desert, thirty leagues back from the coast, and nearly 9,000 feet above the 
sea level. Dr. R. A. Philippi who visited the place describes it in the second 
volume of the United States Astronomical Expedition, page 288. A few small 
pieces first dropped by the meteor were found ten minutes’ walk N.N.E. of the 
excavations from which the Indians had removed the principal masses; tradition 
saying that one large one is still covered and another very great specimen had 
rolled perhaps when the meteor burst to the bottom of the valley. As mules are 
the only vehicles, none of the pieces removed could have weighed 300 lbs. unless 
they had been first divided. Dr. Philippi collected within a space of sixty or eighty 
steps long and twenty broad 6*73 pieces weighing altogether not quite three pounds. 
Ilis two companions and his guide were equally successful and probably one-half 
escaped them. The meteor therefore must have rained or sparkled iron while it 
fell. The surface of the earth immediately around is a porphyritie sfienitic clay, 
reddened with its owm iron and mixed with an infinity of small stones like the rest 
of the desert; dendritic spots of manganese and amphibole occur on the desert 
stones which are not rolled but very angular. The meteoric fragments are also 
peculiarly angular; the smallest are lamellar; the larger arborescent lamellar, 
covered with intersecting lines, very black, some of them iridescent; having tran¬ 
sparent olivine iu small cavities, the iron looking also as if it had flowed in among 
olivine crystals already formed; some more compact; the olivine much decomposed 
to a clay showing under the microscope vitreous or crystalline grains. A fifty 
pound specimen in the cabinet of Don Ignacio Domeyko has polar magnetism, the 
poles being curiously near the two extremities. One specimen seemed the result 
of two fused pieces touching as they fell. Others seemed scratched or rubbed in 
falling. They are so delicate, so crisped, and have extremities so fine and sharp, 
that they must have been formed upon the spot and are undoubted meteors. 


4 Annual of Scien. Disc. Boston : 1858. 


IRON AS AN ORE IN THE UNITED STATES. 


351 


Captain Alexander found a considerable a ea on the east bank of the Great Fish 
river covered with masses of malleable iron, too numerous to be imagined aerolites 
until J. Herschel found 4.61 nickel in a specimen brought home. 5 

Ainsworth recounts in his Researches c how boulders of malleable iron occur in 
the Valley of Ekmah Chei and on the plain of Divriji in Armenia, but gives no 
description by which their meteoric origin can be demonstrated. 

Similar masses of meteoric iron in a canon near Tucson in New Mexico, two of 
which were used as anvils by the blacksmiths of the village. 6 7 Mr. Bartlett U. S. 
Boundary Commissioner described one of these masses as weighing 600 pounds and 
Dr. J. L. Smith gave as its analysis: nickeliferous iron 93.18, chrome iron, 0.49, 
Shreibersite 0.84, olivine 5.06. B 

A much larger mass weighing 3,854 lbs. exists in Chihuahua, Mexico. Another 
weighing 252 lbs. found at Saltillo, Coahuila in Mexico, has been deposited in the 
Cabinet of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington and was described before the 
American Association meeting there in 1854, by Dr. Smith, who evidently sustained 
the lunar theory which assigns the origin of such masses to the body of the moon, 
from which when ejected forcibly enough they might revolve for ages round the 
earth before they reached its surface. Laplace and Arago once held this theory 
but gave it up in favor of their genesis from shooting stars. The facts that one- 
twentieth of the surface of the moon is volcanic, that its attractive energy is but 
one-sixth of the earth’s, that it has neither atmosphere nor ocean to oxidize its iron, 
which would therefore reach us pure, are the principal arguments in favor of this theory 

Chladni draws attention to another exhibition of this kind in the Mexican province 
of Durango, which Alexander von Humboldt calculated to weigh from 15 to 20 
tons, and contained nickel. Humboldt himself in the Cosmos speaks of the mass 
that struck the pyramid of Cholulu and was worshipped by the priests. 

In 1835 at Cirencester England a stone weighing 9,270 grains rushed through 
the air without light, passed some workman seated against the Avail and struck 
through a haystack upon the earth with a great shock ; when picked up it was not 
hot; contained much iron but was not magnetic. Half a mile south of it a multi¬ 
tude of smaller pieces fell in a shower. 1 

Among the latest meteoric masses seen to fall and found are two described by 
M. Hornes before the Imperial Academy of Vienna; the first fell the 15th April 
1857 at Kaba near Debriczen, at 10 o’clock in the evening, with great noise and a 
sweeping glare which lasted 40 seconds and was discovered the next morning buried 
in the road as a blackish stone, weighing 8 lbs. highly magnetic, botryoidal and 
containing fragments of sulphuret of iron. The other fell October 10th 1857 near 
Kalsbourg about midnight, deafening a priest Nicolas Maldowan with its explosion 
and roar, and was found next morning half buried in a vineyard, a pyramidal mass 
of 34 lbs. weight, specific gravity 3.11, full of grains of olivine, native iron, and 
magnetic oxide. An analysis by Buckeisen showed it composed chiefly of olivine, 
augite, iron and sulphuret of iron.' 2 

In Cocke county Tennessee Professor Troost in 1840 found many pieces of 
meteoric iron in the hands of people who attached an incredible value to them, sup- 

6 London and Ed. Phil. Mag. xiv. 32, in Karsten’s Memoir. 

e London, 1838, p. 285, in eodem. 

t Annual of Sci. Disc. 1852. Report of Dr. Leconte’s communication to Albany meet¬ 
ing Amer. Assoc. 1851. 8 9 ^ unual Sci. Enq. ^ 

9 Paper not published in the proceedings but reported in the Annual of Sci. Dis. 1855 

* Brit. Assoc., 1857, p. 140. a Cosmos de Paris, 1858, p. 572. 


352 


PART II.—DIVISION IT. 


posing them to be of silver. The principal mass must have weighed originally 
about 2,000 lbs., and was composed of metallic iron (iron 87. nickel 12. carbon 0.5), 
graphite (carbon 93. iron 6.) pyrites and brown and yellow hydroxide of iron. 
Ninety-five hundredths of the whole was nickeliferous iron, partly crystalline in 
lamellae, and partly agglutinated in grains; malleable ; harder and whiter than 
common wrought iron, and filing white. The pyrites was softer than the com¬ 
mon sulphuret of iron and of great quantity. The hydroxide occupied the whole 
surface of the mass. Other smaller masses were found in Dickson Co. and on Caney 
Fork in Tennessee, and several inN. Carolina twenty miles east of the Warm Springs. 

A mass of 55 pounds’ weight was ploughed up in Tazewell county Tennessee, 3 * 5 
composed of iron 83. and nickel 14.62 with small proportions of copper, cobalt, 
phosphorus, chlorine, silica, sulphur and magnesia, and some small particles of 
phosphuret of iron and nickel called schreibersite resembling pyrites. On earth 
phosphates are numerous and abundant, but no phosphuret is known. It exists in 
plates and fragments visible to the naked eye in almost all meteoric iron. From 
Trinity river, Louisiana, a mass of over 3,000 lbs. was sent to New York and 
described by Silliman. 4 

A meteorite, weighing 178 lbs. from Great Lion river Nemaqualand South Africa, 
and another weighing 58 lbs. from Newberry South Carolina were added to Prof. 
Sheppard’s collection at Amherst in 1852. 6 The same year Prof. Root describes in 
Silliman’s Journal a drop-shaped mass weighing 9 lbs. found in digging a ditch on the 
Seneca river in New York. 6 Whether this was of ante-historic date or not is not 
stated, and it has been recently affirmed and even made a matter of admiration that 
no fossil meteoric iron has ever been found. But it is well known that the hardest 
iron ore outcrop weathers by accepting oxygen, and that no isolated mass of purer 
iron could be buried in moist sand or clay through the latest or shortest geological era 
without becoming a mass of rust, and probably disappearing by solution. At any 
rate a mass of meteoric iron was discovered in a railroad cutting in the spring of 
1850 near Schwetz upon the Vistula, buried four feet beneath the surface of sand, 
lying upon the subincumbent clay, 9 in. long and weighing 43 lbs. Its outer sur¬ 
face was rounded and coated with hydrated oxide. On polishing a section, Wid- 
mannstattian figures were obtained with acid, and nickel by analysis. 1 

Meteoric iron, Wohler states, according to his observation in the majority of 
cases is in the passive state, or cannot extract copper to coat itself withal from 
a solution of the neutral sulphate of copper; but strange to say the power to do 
this is instantly communicated to it by touching it while in the solution wi'h a 
piece of common iron, or by adding a drop of acid to the solution. But if the film 
be filed away the new meteoric surface is again found to be passive in the solution; 
the power is but temporary. This inertness is not due to any action of nitric acid 
previously applied to bring out the Widmannstattian figures, but characterizes 
new masses. Not all however; some genuine meteors are active ; six in fact out of 
seventeen examined ; and four more gradually became active showing action at first 
at one point or at the margins of the fluid. An artificial alloy of iron and nickel 
(which damasked on corrosion) was found to be as active insul. cop. as common iron.” 

3 Described by Dr. J. L. Smith in Silliman’s Journal. 4 Journal, vol. iii. p. 45. 

6 In the May number of Silliman’s Journal for 1855 is a memoir on meteorites by 

Prof. J. L. Smith giving figures and analyses of 5 North American specimens. 

6 Ann. Sci. Dis. Boston, 1853, p. 300. 7 M. S. Rose, Berlin Acad. 1851, Ann. Sci, 

Dis. 1852. 8 Ann. Sci. Dis. 1853, quoting Poggend. Ann. 


CHAPTER L 


THE PRIMARY. IRON ORES. 

In Professor Whitney’s admirable treatise on the metals of 
the United States, 1 a work of equal judgment and learning, and 
written in a style at once scholarly and practical, the author 
states the several theories entertained of metallic veins. He 
dismisses summarily and with evident contempt the first theory 
he mentions, to wit, that they are contemporaneous deposits with 
the rocks through which they run. He rejects the second, to 
wit, that they are fillings from below of open fissures in the 
crust with molten metalliferous matter for three reasons, 1. 
because they differ in the same neighborhood when they cut 
different rocks; 2. because their walls show no traces of the 
action of that incredible force which alone could force them to 
the surface; 3. because the heavier metals would in that case 
occupy the lower and light metals the higher parts, which is 
never the case. 3 To the third theory he yields a limited 

» The Metallic Wealth of the United States described and compared with that of other 
Countries, by J. D. Whitney. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. London: 
Triibner & Co. 1854, p. 60. 

2 Yet Mr. Whitney seems to adopt this theory in the communication which he made 
to the American Association at the Providence meeting, where he remarked that there 
were scattered over the earth deposits of iron of peculiar character and extraordinary 
purity, and that the mode of their occurrence was also peculiar; they belonged to cer¬ 
tain systems of rocks, and were found only in those systems. The principal localities in 
which this iron occurred were Scandinavia, northern New York, Superior and Missouri. 
In Sweden there was a single bed 700 feet in width by four or five miles in length. The 
deposits in northern New York were not so extensive, but the Cleveland Iron Mountain 
in the Lake Superior country rose to the height of 1,039 feet above the lake, with a 
breadth of 1,000 feet, and was entirely composed of iron ore. Along its summit were 
numerous knobs 50 to 100 feet in height, which were perfectly pure. There were nume¬ 
rous othbr mountains in Missouri which furnished equally pure ores. The ores thus 
found were almost always of two kinds, specular and magnetic. The specular predomi¬ 
nated in Sweden, Superior and Missouri, while the magnetic prevailed in northern New 
York. In Superior the iron beds lay between trap and talcose slate ; in Missouri 
porphyry was near; in New York it seemed to have been sedimentarily deposited in 
lenticular masses, and afterwards subjected to metamorphic action; these all in azoic 
rocks. As the azoic periods were more violent in their action than later periods, it was 
probable that what was thrown up during those periods came from a deeper portion of the 
earth , and we might hence infer that there were great deposits of pure iron deep down 
in the earth.— Reported in the Annual Sci. Facts , 1856, p. 303. 

23 



354 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


assent, to wit, that some metalliferous deposits were sublimed 
from the hot nucleus of the planet, and therefore if not the con¬ 
sequence of molten ejections, are due to a still hotter cause, but 
states that the objections to this theory are the same that avail 
against the one preceding it. lie rejects the Wernerian 
theory of chemical solution and deposition in open fissures 
from above, 1. because we can conceive of no reason for a solu¬ 
tion covering the surface not coating the surface as well as filling 
the fissure; 2. because we find no mechanical or common strati¬ 
fied rock deposit in the fissures, but on the contrary the arrange¬ 
ment of every vein in sheets against the walls; and for many 
other reasons which he says it is needless to specify. The fifth 
theory of lateral secretion therefore he adojds, and consi¬ 
ders it most widely entertained at present among geologists. It 
conceives of a process due to various causes and requiring a 
long period of time but consisting chiefly in the secretion or 
segregation of metals in veins by solution from the rocks on 
each side, and their deposition upon the walls under the influ¬ 
ence of electro-chemical forces. 

No doubt multitudes of metal veins were thus formed, in 
fissures kept like natural vats or galvanic batteries always full 
of acidulated waters acting on the porous rock material of the 
walls, dissolving out the various metallic ingredients therein 
originally deposited and precipitating these in successive layers 
against the surface of the walls. But it is impossible to arrange 
the innumerable facts of the world of veins under this or any 
other one head, or explain them by this or any other single 
theory. There are certainly veins of recent infiltration; but 
there are others which as evidently were original beds. These 
last Mr. Whitney would distinguish as false veins from the true 
veins of which he speaks. But veins and beds, distinguish¬ 
able as they are in the majority of cases, nevertheless so gra¬ 
duate into each other as to show either a mixed or a doubtful 
origin. This is peculiarly true of the so-called veins of primary 
iron ore; and the first theory which Mr. Whitney so sum¬ 
marily dismisses as opposed to all known facts, is in certain prin¬ 
cipal localities the only one which apparently embraces all the 
facts. The so-called veins of specular and magnetic ore in 
northern New York, New Jersey and Missouri are of this class 
and when Mr. Whitney says that “ the mountain masses of 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


355 


Missouri liave preeminently an eruptive character and are asso¬ 
ciated with rocks which have always been considered as of 
unmistakably eruptive origin,” 3 we must interpret the ex¬ 
pression by the preceding and succeeding paragraphs, as the 
judgment of the past and not his own, saying that the specular 
and magnetic ores of Lake Superior, New York and Scandina¬ 
via fall into the same category and yet are not true veins but 
“slaty beds impregnated with peroxide of iron,”—“exhibiting 
the appearance of a secondary action having taken place since 
their original formation.” 

“ The masses of ore in the azoic, 4 though developed on a larger scale, and made 
up of purer ores than those occupying any other geological position, are not 
economically so important as those which occur in stratified deposits in connection 
with the coal. The ores found in this group are the oxides, specular ore and 
magnetic ore. When associated with foreign matter, this is almost invariably of a 
silieious nature, quartz in some form; but they are generally quite pure, often 
approaching a state of chemical purity. 5 * * They are particularly valuable as being 
more likely than any other ores to be free from arsenic, phosphorus and sulphur, 
which have an injurious effect on the quality of iron. 

“ The ores of Sweden and Norway, which furnish so large a portion of the iron 
used for conversion into the finer qualities of steel, belong chiefly to this class of 
deposits. 

“ The following scheme of their mode of occurrence is given by Durocher, who has 
published a very detailed and careful description of the metalliferous deposits of 
Scandinavia: 


c 


DIVISION I. 

Deposits in the Azoic 
system (gneiss and - 
argillaceous shales). 


A. Deposits of pure mag¬ 
netic oxide. 


B. Specular iron, pure or 
mixed with mag : I. 


' a. In gneiss alone or accom¬ 
panied by granite and in 
the allied slates, talcose, 
chloritic and micaceous. 
b. In Hornblende rocks inter¬ 
calated in the gneiss. 

( In gneiss and associated 
< quartzose and micaceous 
( slates. 


. C. Magnetic oxide in the argillaceous shales. 

“ The remaining ores, which are comparatively of little importance, consist of 
masses of magnetic and rarely of specular ore, near the contact of the palaeozoic 
rocks and the granite, 8 and bog ore, forming deposits in low ground and swamps. 

“ The azoic series in Sweden and Norway is made up principally of a crystalline, 
granitic gneiss, presenting an almost infinite succession of feldspathic, quartzose, 
micaceous and hornblendic laminae, and often cut through and disturbed by dykes 
of greenstone and granite. The researches of Murchison and Yerneuil show con- 


3 Metallic Wealth, p. 433. 

4 [By Azoic rocks are meant those which lie underneath the lowest rock containing 

fossil shells, plants or worm tracks.— j. p. l.] 5 [That is nearly pure oxide —j. p. l.] 

« [Such as the Cornwall mine in Lebanon county Pennsylvania, and others in Berks 

county in the same range.— j. p. l.] 




356 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


clusively that these rocks had taken their present form before the deposition of the 
Lower Silurian strata. There are several localities where the magnetic oxide occurs 
nearly pure and without gangue. Of this the mine of Bispberg furnishes a good 
example. It has the form of a lenticular mass, and its longest axis coincides with 
the direction of the schistose structure of the slates in which it is inclosed. The 
mines of Danemora are in a ferriferous band of about 600 feet in width and 
7,000 in length. In the neighborhood, gneiss is the prevailing rock ; but in the 
immediate proximity of the mines, the rock exposed is a greyish limestone, slightly 
magnesian, accompanied by talcose and chloritic slates, which probably are subordi- 
nate to the gneiss. The deposits of iron form imperfectly cylindrical masses, with 
their axes nearly vertical, and their bases much elongated in the direction of the 
schistose structure of the rock. 

“ The mines of Uto, which are especially interesting to the mineralogist on account 
of the variety of minerals containing litliia which are found there, are of considerable 
importance. The ore is principally the specular oxide mixed with the magnetic. It 
is in the form of lenticular masses inclosed in micaceous slates and quartz rock. 
At the point of contact of the ferriferous mass, the quartzose beds predominate, and 
the silica is often impregnated with and colored by the iron. The principal deposit 
is about one hundred and twenty feet across its widest part, forming an enormous 
lenticular mass, of an irregular contour, and with a vertical axis. 

“ At Gellivara the magnetic oxide forms a mountain mass three or four miles in 
length and a mile and a half in width, a great portion of which is very pure, some 
parts of it containing specular ore mixed with magnetic. The principal reasons why 
this enormous mass has not been w r orked to any considerable extent are its remote¬ 
ness from navigable wnters and its very high northern latitude (67°). 

“ These deposits are called, in Sw r eden and Norway, veins, but they differ materially 
in character from what is generally understood by true veins. With a few excep¬ 
tions, they appear to have been deposited in the midst of schistose or massive 
rocks, in forms which approach more nearly to beds or elongated bands and 
irregular masses ; and they have evidently not filled previously existing fissures 
which cross the strata at an angle, but almost uniformly coincide, in the direction 
of their greatest elongation, with the strata of the schistose rock. 

“ The micaceous specular ores are generally associated with the quartzose and mica 
slates, and but rarely with the calcareous rocks. When there is calcareous matter 
near the junction of the ore and the inclosing rock, there is a great variety of 
minerals in the gangue, indicating that they were formed under certain conditions 
by the metamorphic action of the ferriferous mass upon the adjacent rocks. The 
mine of Hassel, in Norway, offers a good instance of the tendency of the specular 
ore to associate itself with the quartzose and slaty rocks. The deposit is not a vein, 
but rather a series of slaty beds, impregnated with peroxide of iron to the amount 
of twenty or thirty per cent. 

“ There can be no finer instances of the mode of occurrence now under discussion 
than are to be found in this country. The mountain masses of Missouri have pre¬ 
eminently the eruptive character, and are associated with rocks which have always 
been considered as of unmistakably eruptive origin. The iron region of Lake Supe¬ 
rior, which is even more extensive and more abundant in ores than that of Mis¬ 
souri, is another instance of the vast development of these ores in the azoic. 

“In the State of New York, in the same geological position, we find the same 
occurrence of the specular and magnetic oxides, and almost rivalling with those of 
the regions just mentioned in magnitude and importance. Here, however, the evi- 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


357 


dences of direct eruptive origin are perhaps .ess conspicuous, and the deposits seem, 
in many cases at least, to exhibit the appearance of a secondary action having taken 
place since their original formation. In this region, these ores have in their mode 
of occurrence the most striking analogy with those of Scandinavia. Like them, 
they generally coincide in the direction of their greatest development with the line 
of strike of the rocks in which they are inclosed, forming lenticular or flattened 
cylinder-shaped masses intercalated in the formation. The inclosing rocks are 
similar in character to those of Sweden; they are gneiss, quartzose, and hypers¬ 
thenic rocks. The deposits of these ores will be noticed more particularly farther 
on, under the head of each State. 

“ Although the iron ores of the azoic have not always had a purely igneous origin, 
yet even in those cases where they bear the most evident marks of having been 
deposited in beds parallel with the formation, with the presence of water, we must 
acknowledge that preexisting eruptive masses may have furnished the material 
from which they were derived. That the azoic period was one of long-continued 
and violent action cannot be doubted, and while the deposition of the stratified beds 
was going on, volcanic agencies, combined with powerful currents, may have 
abraded and swept away portions of the erupted ferriferous masses, rearranging 
their particles and depositing them again in the depressions of the strata. This 
seems the most probable origin of some of these lenticular beds of ore parallel with 
the stratification, where it is difficult to conceive of a fissure always coinciding with 
the line of strike of the formation, and where the mechanical evidences are wanting 
of the thrusting up of such masses of matter, which we know could not have taken 
place without many dislocations of the surrounding rocks which would have made 
themselves very apparent. 

“ The masses of iron ore in the azoic are far more grand in their scale of develop¬ 
ment than in any other formation, characterizing it everywhere as the age of iron ; 
a fact which has a high degree of significance, when we consider that this is the 
oldest geological formation, and that we thus, as it were, receive a hint as to the 
structure of the interior of the earth. In this connection, it will be remembered 
that the bodies of extra-terrestrial origin which fall upon the earth, or meteorites, 
are very often found to consist of metallic iron, and we are thus led directly to 
infer the existence of vast masses of metallic iron within the interior of the globe. 

“ The evidences of eruptive masses of iron ore grow fainter as we ascend in the 
scale of formations, or recede from the focus of internal heat; but, nevertheless, 
the ferriferous emanations from volcanoes still in action, as well as the undeniable 
upheaval of oxidized iron from the interior of the earth during comparatively 
recent periods, show that there are still supplies of the same material accessible, 
which are not below the depth at which chemical action is still going on and making 
itself sensible.” 

It appears from the foregoing that Mr. Whitney accepts both 
the eruptive and the sedimentary theories of the formation of 
the primary iron ores and applies the former to unknown, in¬ 
visible masses antecedent to and now deeply buried under all, 
even the oldest rocks which appear upon the present surface; 
masses of far greater size and depth than the greatest yet dis¬ 
covered, proportionate to the greater scale of all volcanic action 
in that pre-azoic day, and offering their sides and tops to such 



358 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


erosion and solution as would of course happen in such unsettled 
times, and be sufficient for producing the vast sediments of iron 
which have been taken for volcanic outbursts of the molten 
metal. But there is a fatal difficulty in the way of this hy¬ 
pothesis. These ore beds are not breccias. Deposits of the kind 
imagined would be conglomeritic j blocks of pig iron would be 
seen scattered through strata of granite. The hypothesis halts 
precisely where a similar sedimentary hypothesis for the origin 
of coal halts; it is unable to explain the solid homogeneous 
outspread and evidently local character of the deposit. But 
setting this aside, it is a mere hypothesis. No such masses of 
cast iron have ever been seen in the world. The beautiful 
theory of Sir Humphrey Davy so charmingly explained and 
illustrated by Sir Charles Byell in the xxxiii. chapter of hh 
Principles, according to which the metallic bases exist in pur it] 
in the molten nucleus of the earth, and at the crust are alter 
nately oxidized and deoxidized by the oxygen and hydrogen o' 
the sea water and the air, giving rise to steam pressure, eartli 
quakes, volcanic lavas, pumice dust and gaseous exhalations, i 
perfect in its way; but it does not help us to conclude tha 
planetary masses of pure iron have ever been ejected through 
the crust. Mr. Whitney however adduces what he thinks are 
positive examples of this kind of action in more recent days to 
support the ejection theory. He says : 

“The magnetic iron ore hill near Nijny Tagilsk, which is extensively wrought, 
affords a fine illustration of an eruptive mass in the midst of sedimentary formations. 
There are numerous points of eruptive rocks, mostly hornblendic greenstone, among 
stratified masses, which have been highly metamorphosed in their vicinity. The 
age of the sedimentary beds is referred by Murchison to the Upper Silurian, although 
the fossils are mostly obliterated by the metamorphic action. These limestones 
appear to have been rent in twain by a narrow ridge of intrusive greenstone, which 
rises to the north of Nijny Tagilsk into a high hill (Vissokaya-gora), on the summit 
and flanks of which iron ore has long been extracted. The chief mass of the ore is 
seen to occupy the valley on the western side of the hill, where it has been deeply 
cut into by open quarries, and is found to consist of an enormous body of ore, 
rudely bedded and traversed by numerous joints, and exposed for a height of a 
hundred feet and a length of several hundred. In opening out the side of the val¬ 
ley nearest to the hill of greenstone, irregular knobs or points of rocks were met 
with, on stripping which it was found that the iron ore had accommodated itself to 
the irregularities of their surface, and that at such points of contact, the ore was not 
only harder and more crystalline than usual, but also much more magnetic than at 
a short distance from the greenstone. 

“The rock associated with the magnetic iron ore of Mount Blagodat, near Kusch- 
winsk, which has been worked since 1730, is a feldspathic augite porphyry. So fai 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


359 


as they have been worked down, the excavations exhibit a continuous mass of fine¬ 
grained magnetic iron ore, with flakes of yellow and pink feldspar and brown mica. 
It is the opinion of Col. Helmersen, who has carefully studied this locality, that these 
feldspathic iron-stone masses are portions of dykes of eruptive character which have 
traversed the porphyry, a fragment of that rock even having been found in one of 
them which rises up from near the base of the hill. 

u The Katschkanar, one of the loftiest and most rugged summits of the Ural, is 
made up of igneous rocks (greenstone), having a bedded structure and traversed by 
regular joints, so as to give it the appearance of a sedimentary rock ; it is cut 
through by courses of magnetic iron ore, and has an abundance of the same sub¬ 
stance diffused through it in crystals ; but the ore is hard and intractable, and being 
at one of the most inaccessible points of the Ural, the works which were commenced 
there are now abandoned. 

“ There can be no doubt, from the consideration of all the phenomena of these 
localities, that the ores are of purely eruptive origin, and that they have played the 
same part as the igneous greenstones and porphyries with which they are associated. 
At Nijny Tagilsk, it is evident that the magnetic iron penetrated the preexisting 
greenstone, and flowed, as sub-marine lava or volcanic mud, into the contiguous 
depressions. This is proved by the fact that the ore expands in width, thickness, 
and dimensions, as it is traced into the lower parts of the valley, precisely as a lava 
stream which fills up the sinuosities of the subjacent rock. Such was the opinion 
of Helmersen, and it was adopted by Murchison, although not agreeing with his 
preconceived theories. 

“The iron mines of Elba, which are celebrated alike for the length of time they 
have been worked and for the purity and beauty of their ores, furnish another in¬ 
teresting example of the class of eruptive masses associated with the more modern 
rocks. The metalliferous deposits of the island are mostly concentrated towards its 
eastern extremity, and are associated with serpentine. The sedimentary rocks in 
that vicinity have been metamorphosed and intermingled with serpentine, so as to 
give rise to an abundance of beautifully variegated marble. The mass of specular 
ore worked near Rio is included between the upturned slates which form the flank 
of the Mountains of St. Catherine. It has all the appearance of having been forced 
from below upwards through the strata, which are highly metamorphosed at the 
contact of the ferriferous mass, and into which the metallic emanations have pene¬ 
trated in every direction. As a proof of this, it may be observed that the attendant 
minerals vary with the adjacent strata. In the quartzose slates, crystallized quartz 
predominates ; in the calcareous strata, actinolite and yenite have been developed. 

“ The mass of magnetic ore and hematite of Monte Calamita is more extensive 
than that of Rio, and exhibits even more clearly the phenomena of igneous action. 
It has uplifted the superincumbent strata, and produced on them all the effects of 
metamorphism due to igneous action. For instance, the compact limestone which 
lies adjacent to the ferriferous mass is changed into a saccharoidal dolomite, and 
along the line of contact silicates of lime, magnesia, and iron have been developed. 
According to Burat, the whole appearance of the mass is that of an immense wedge 
driven upwards from below into the calcareous and schistose rocks, producing all 
the effects to be expected from the intrusion of such a mass by igneous agency. 

“ The geological age of the strata which have been thus metamorphoses! by the 
ferriferous masses, is considered by Burat to be near the Jurassic, but the introduc¬ 
tion of the metallic matter itself probably took tdae.e at a much later period, 
perhaps after the deposition of the calk.” 


360 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


When we remember how many observers have pronounced 
the Missouri iron mountains solid masses of pure metal rising 
from the central regions of the earth in the shape of cones, 
thrusting their points through the crust precisely as men 

described the Mauncli Chunk summit mine before the floor of 

* 

that immense horizontal bed of coal was discovered and its 
shape revealed,—we may withhold for a while our unqualified 
assent to these descriptions and suspect that future research 
may modify the appearances presented now. But even if they 
still continued to be well adjudged expressions ot the possibility 
of volcanic iron they will not cease to be rare exceptions to the 
general rule, and therefore supporters only to that extent of the 
ejection theory. They will still leave the sedimentary theory 
all the ground it asks for innumerable beds of crystallized iron 
in metamorphic rocks; original productions at the bottom of 
a sea; not subsequent segregations in fissures, such as Prof. 
Whitney goes on to describe :— 

“Deposits of this class are widely scattered over the world, and frequently deve¬ 
loped on a grand scale, though not so much so as those in the azoic. The more 
extensively metamorphosed the formation, and the older it is, the more do the 
deposits of iron ore take on the character of true veins. The spathic ore is one of 
the most abundant in this position, forming often veins of great extent, and fur¬ 
nishing large quantities of a material eminently calculated for making good iron 
and steel. The interesting vein of this ore at Roxbury, Connecticut, may be 
noticed as a good example of the class. Veins and vein-like masses of the same 
ore, and similar in position, occurring in the valley of the Rhine, furnish the mate¬ 
rial to the numerous manufactories of steel of that region. 

“Veins of magnetic iron ore are also frequently found occurring in this position. 
In this country they are especially numerous. They are generally segregated 
masses lying in the direction of the stratification. Sometimes they are quite pure, 
being mixed only with a little silicious matter; at other times they are associated 
with other metalliferous minerals. Occasionally the iron ore is found, as the depth 
increases, to be replaced in part by ores of copper. In the southern States, the 
occurrence of gold with ores of iron is very frequent, but the latter are too much 
mixed with pyrites to be of any value apart from the gold which they contain. 

“ In the carboniferous limestone of England there are numerous deposits of 
hematite of great importance, some of which are intermediate in character between 
veins and beds, while others appear to occupy previously-formed fissures, and tc 
belong to the class of gash-veins, the ferriferous matter having been deposited in 
them from above. In general, the kind of ore-deposits now under consideration, 
when not associated with crystalline rocks, are not distinctly marked in their 
characters, but seem to form a connecting link between the stratified and unstratified 
masses.” 

It is not intended to deny that iron is involved in all volcanic 
operations, with silica, alumina, lime, magnesia and other 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


361 


metallic oxides and non-metallic elements. On tlie contrary; 
no element is more universally present in the world, and there¬ 
fore none can suffer a greater variety of contingencies and trans¬ 
formations. Iron appeared in the lavas of Etna during the 
eruption of 1855 in two forms the magnetic and the non-mag- 
netic. The early lavas of that eruption were grey, much more 
crystalline and strongly magnetic. The later lavas were dark, 
with a glassy coating, and had no action upon the magnet. 
Both were found to contain nearly the same amount of iron. 
Both contained also phosphoric acid (1.4 and 2.2 per cent). 7 
But there is need of some strong counteracting prejudice in 
favor of a truer view of the primary so-called veins of iron 
against the old prejudice that every unexplainable appearance 
among stratified rocks must be an issue of red-hot or fluid mine¬ 
ral from some conjectural reservoir of volcanism underlying 
even the quietest portions of the earth-crust, a prejudice which 
lies at the bottom of men’s credulity to the cunning miner’s 
maxim “ it will improve as you go down.” Mineral like veget¬ 
able life to a remarkable extent confines itself to the mere sur¬ 
face of the planet. 

All iron ores in gangues and layers, says Gustav Bischof 6 are either immediate 
deposits from waters or are deposited from such by the removal of other substances. 
There is no rock sediment in fact wholly free from protoxide of iron. Even in the 
variegated red sandstones I have found remarkable quantities. Plenty of material 
is at hand therefore in the adjoining strata for even such vast beds as those of 
Schlettenbach and Bergzabern in Rheinbaiern. 9 Should a rock contain nothing but 
peroxide, organic substances will reduce this to protoxide and the developing car¬ 
bonic acid will convert this again into carbonate of iron. Never has an iron gangue 
been filled by sublimation. The sublimation of iron in Vesuvius is a local exhibi¬ 
tion, impossible, as Mitscherlich showed, 1 without the help of water. Iron ores 
change into each other, but never into other minerals. All of them are products 
of the decomposition of iron-holding minerals, and as scarcely any mineral is not 
iron-holding any mineral may form an iron ore bed. Iron ores are replaced by 
Quartz, Ilornstone, Graphite, Psilomelan and Chlorite. 

Bischof gives instances of curious apparent changes of magnetic iron and other 
iron ores both crystallized and amorphous into each of these minerals: to wit, 
Quartz in the form of iron, spathic, specular and pyrites, vol. ii. page 1260; Horn- 
stone page 1305 ; Graphite as lately discovered in the form of iron pyrites in the 
Haidinger’s meteoric mass of Arva, described in the Wiener Zeitung of April 17, 
1844, on page *70; Psilomelan in the form of arseniate of iron, on page 1325 ; and 
Chlorite in the form of magnetic iron, etc., on page 1327. 

i Deville, Leblanc and Sewy, in Annual Sci. Disc. Boston, 1858. 

8 Lehrbuch der Chemischen und Physicalischen Geologie, Bonn, 1854, vol. ii. p. 1325. 

9 V. Leonhard n. Jahrb. 1845 S. 1 ff. 1 Poggend. Ann. B. xv. S. 630. 



362 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


On the other hand we know of 26 minerals which are replaced by iron, that is, in 
the forms or moulds of which it casts itself by percolation and crystallization. In 
springs, rivers and seas the carbonate of the protoxide and the sulphate of iron 
occur, the latter seldom, the former in all waters with scarcely an exception, and 
hence the multitude of crystal forms which its universal precipitation enables it to 
possess itself of, for we are not to imagine the peroxide or the hydrated peroxide 
or the sulphuret to be ever in solution in water, 3 except in so far as the double car¬ 
bonate alkalies dissolve the hydrated peroxide, which therefore in many cases can 
replace and be replaced. 

Bischof then gives in a series of paragraphs from pages 1328 to 1363 the pseudo- 
morphs of the iron ores according to the following forms : spathic iron, brown ore, 
peroxide, pyrites and white pyrites in the form of calc-spar ;—spathic iron, brown 
ore and stilpnosiderite as bitter-spar (carbonate of magnesia);—stilpnosiderite as 
zinc-spar (carbonate);—spathic iron, brown ore and pyrites, as baryta-spar ;—• 
brown ore as gypsum ;—brown ore and red ore, as fluor-spar (fluate of lime);— 
brown ore and pyrites, as quartz ;—brown ore as blend and galena (sulphuret of 
zinc and lead)—brown ore as carbonate of the oxide of lead, as pyromorphite 
(phosphate of lead) and red copper ore ;—pyrites and white iron pyrites as 
schwartzgiiltigerz (sulphuret manganese?) and rothgiiltigerz (red silver, sul¬ 
phuret of antimony and silver);—brown ore as comptonite (hydrated silicate of 
alumina and lime);—brown ore red oxide and magnetic ore as spathic iron j 
brown ore as ankerite (triple carb. lime, mag. iron);—red oxide as brown ore ;— 
brown ore as arseniate of iron and as skorodite (cupreous arseniate of iron) ; 
red oxide as arseniate of iron; stilpnosiderite as sparry blue iron (krokodilite, a 
soda silicate of the protoxide of iron) ;—brown ore as pyrites and white iron 
pyrites ; red oxide as pyrites ;—pyrites as magnetic ore and as arsenical 
pyrites. In these sections lie the explanations of all the changes of appearance 
which distract the subject of the original deposit of iron ores. Each of these 
minerals have been dissolved away like so many fossils and these various iron ores 
have taken their place and form. Every member of this range of transmutations 
seems to be both beginning and end. If in the majority of cases the carbonate pro¬ 
toxide is the first precipitation of the waters, from which the hydrated peroxide, 
protoperoxide and peroxide proceed, yet these oxides may in a reversed order by 
partial reduction through organic substances become carbonate protoxide It is a 
circle which may often repeat itself, and it is clear that the same forms may be at 
different times reproduced. Breithaupt instances the fresh Lobenstein spathic iron 
coming from pseudomorphic brown ore ; the second spathic iron must have been 
formed inside after the first had already been exchanged. 

No metamorphoses of pyrites or magnetic pyrites as spathic iron, brown ore or 
red oxide are known. Either these last cannot change to sulphuret of iron, or the 
earlier forms must become lost and the pyrites crystallize after its own form. 
The yellow pyrites mentioned in vol. i. page 91*7-922 was produced entirely from 
solutions of the salts of iron and mostly from acid carbonate of protoxide. 3 The 
yellow pyrites in stone coal and brown coal has been precipitated from waters 
holding a carbonate of iron in solution, the organic matter here being abundant to 

a Compare page 1152+ . 

8 Breithaupt instances the miner who fell down the deep mine at Fahlun, Sweden, and 
was found 60 years afterwards entirely converted to yellow pyrites, but after being kept 
for seven years in the museum of the works, became sulphate of iron and crumbled 
away. The agent here was of course a solution of a salt of iron. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


363 


make the acid and reduce the peroxide. The yellow pyrites replacing calc-spar, 
baryta-spar, quartz, etc. (add the white iron pyrites replacing fluor-spar) furnish 
further evidence of this origin from solution. According to Forchhammer, how¬ 
ever, ferruginous clay in contact with decaying sea-weed makes pyrites direct, 
although even here the formation may be preceded by the dissolution of protoxide 
iron in carbonated water. 4 

The boldness with which Bischof, looking from the windows 
of his laboratory with the eyes of a chemist, out upon the pri¬ 
mary mountains of the world, denounces the old plutonian 
standpoint and overturns all the settled conclusions of geologists, 
is difficult to imitate and even to admire. Yet he only does 
what the whole tendency of recent structural as well as chemi¬ 
cal discovery lias been predicting that it must be done. In fact 
the question has shaped itself to one of limitation merely, and 
the chemist who can show to a demonstration how still another 
plutonic rock lias probably been formed in the wet way becomes 
the leader by being so much nearer to the inevitable end. Bis¬ 
chof’s own words must be given therefore to justify him in the 
eyes of those who pronounce him a dangerous lieresiarch in 
chemical geology. 

From the foregoing investigations comes the important result that augite [or 
•pyroxene , a combination of silica, lime, protoxide of iron and sometimes manganese 
and alumina in many varieties] can be changed into not merely hornblende 
(page 532) but garnet and hornblende and magnetic iron, and that therefore these 
three fossil-rocks [Fossilien] can form themselves by processes of exchange. As 
described above these Umwandlungs-processe have gone on at Arendal on a mag¬ 
nificent scale ; as Weibye relates, in describing the Thorbjbrnsbo mine, which in 
1842 was 180 feet long, 48 wide and 120 deep, and in which the ore was intimately 
mixed with granular red garnet and augite or hornblende, the mixture occurring 
in isolated fragments, sometimes enveloped by, sometimes enveloping magnetic 
iron, and sometimes both together dissolved away [verfliesst]. These ore masses 
have most commonly well defined edges where they touch the inclosing rock 
masses whether these be granitic or syenitic, or a various fossil grouping of garnet, 
mica, kokkolith, etc.—a rind as it were of ironstone ; but sometimes they branch off 
into, and sometimes flow in together with the wall rocks. The greater number of 
observed syenitic walls inclose either bed-like ironstone masses with many outrun- 
nings, or else ironstone kidneys. The greater number of observed granitic walls 
inclose irregular masses (segregations) and seldom form true veins. None of either 
the veins or the segregations show disturbing action upon the neighboring rock. 
Many observations have convinced Weibye that the vein masses inclose but few 
small and immature fossil-rocks ; these are best developed in the segregations, which 
in granite are wholly irregular—great and small, with and without ramifications— 
and never disturb the strata or change the character of the stone. He makes no 
hypothesis ; enough that these irregular masses have impressed it upon him that 


4 Bischof, vol. ii. p. 1364. 


364 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


they must have been separated from the rock. Not only at Arendal but elsewhere 
meets us the phenomenon of a change of augite into magnetic iron. 

Then follow descriptions of the magnetic ores of the Ural, 
Hartzgebirg and Tnringenwald, “ exhibiting as a fact that it is a 
segregation from angite, and evidently also from allied fosil rocks. 
Can one imagine now a plutonic or any other than a wet way 
by which such segregation may come about V 9 

The oxide and especially the protoxide of iron are strong bases closely related to 
and easily with moderate heat uniting with silicic acid, as is seen in blast furnace 
processes, when for instance copper smelters add quartz minerals to get a fluid 
slag from the protoxide of iron and silica, or when welders sprinkle fine sand on 
the end of the iron to be welded to turn thereby the coating of proto-peroxide into a 
silicate slag which every blow of the sledge removes and lets the pure iron come 
face to face. See then from these examples how impossible it would be to find 
quartz and magnetic iron separate if they were of igneous origin. Yet at Arendal 
the ramifications of magnetic iron penetrate the syenite and granite walls, while 
bands and veins swarm along the bed-planes and cleavage lines of the gneiss. As 
little can the magnetic ore result from a metamorphosis of the gneiss plutonically. 
And if syenite and granite w r ere igneous rocks it were impossible for magnetic iron 
to separate from them. Wet segregation alone remains. 

Bischof then instances the quartz crystals in magnetic ore in 
various mines, and such intimate admixtures of granular granite 
and quartz and hornblende crystals with iron as to become ore 
beds. 

At Falun the pyrites of copper, iron, lead and zinc occur in quartz gangue. In 
the Breadgang mine the gangue is quartz, hornblende, garnet and calcspar. [The 
American beds show the same.] Should the ultra-plutonists grant that the accom¬ 
panying quartz is of watery origin (compelled by such facts as the discoloration of 
green topaz by heat) but still claim an igneous origin for the magnetic iron, they 
will find no escape this way, for the welding trick must be repeated on a grander 
scale in a supposed molten ore vein enveloping quartz, forming a silicate slag. 
Moreover Weibye shows that at Arendal the segregations diminish in number as 
one descends, and hence the present scarcity of minerals once so common in these 
mines, for they exist in the segregations. If now the ore were plutonic, from the 
earth’s centre, the reverse would be the fact. Leaving the day and nearing the 
centre we near the fire, but leave behind the water. Water and not fire therefore 
aggregated these mineral masses. 

In the Island Lango the magnetic ores in mica-gneiss, in quarzite, in massive 
granite, etc are apparently everywhere surrounded by trap-rocks and even pene¬ 
trate these so that Weibye considers them of trappean origin. Yes says Bischof— 
segregated from trap. 

But are all the Norwegian magnetic ores conversions from augite? a hard ques¬ 
tion dependent upon a larger synthesis of analyses, in which lime and magnesia, 
carbon and silica, talc, serpentine, kokkolith and analcime play their parts. There 
are of course difficulties in accounting for it where a whole mountain of augite- 
porphyry is turned into magnetic iron. Recollecting that only carbonated 
waters act upon this mineral, we see that when the augite (if rich in iron) decom- 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


365 


poses, lime and magnesia will be entirely and protoxide of iron partially carried off, 
with silica (as the decomposition of Rhodonite and Bustamite shows, p. 557), some 
protoxide remaining and peroxidizing; when the labradorite decomposes (by the 
carbonated waters) lime and soda are carried off and kaoline remains; the combined 
result will be magnetic iron and kaoline. In the magnet mountain Wissokaja 
Gora we do not find the clay mixed with the iron, but underlying it and walling the 
rock which Hermann describes as an impure ( i. e. a weathered) porphyry composed 

of red-green jasper with feldspar and scattered quartz grains. We 

are not to imagine the soluble constituents of augite and augite porphyry washed 
away for that would leave but 26 per cent of protoxide or 28 of magnetic iron (in 
augite), or only 8 per cent of the augite porphyry mass behind; but the materials 
suffer decomposition in the bed which in fact has its volume even enlarged by the 
lime taking up carbonic acid and the protoxide of iron taking up oxygen. 6 . 

The difficulties which Bischof confesses and details are such 
as appeal rather to the chemist than to the geologist. On the 
other hand the geologist feels a difficulty which seems to have 
been scarcely perceived by the chemist, to wit, the rare occur¬ 
rence of magnetic ore beds in rocks which according to this 
hypothesis might produce them anywhere and in any required 
magnitude, and especially their recurrence along well-estab¬ 
lished planes or at certain fixed geological times in the long 
sequence of deposits. 

A basis of explanation however must be adopted essentially 
the same as that on which Bischof so firmly stands, even by 
those who feel this difficulty most. The following extract from 
a letter of one of our most distinguished American chemists 8 
trained geologically in the field, is published here, without 
apology to the reader and with the author’s kind permission, to 
support these views : 

I see no reason for assigning any other than a sedimentary origin to the magnetic 
and specular iron ores of the crystalline schists, nor do I conceive that the condi¬ 
tions under which they were deposited differed essentially from those which at the 
present day give rise to beds of limonite and ochre. Kindler and Daubree have 
shown that waters containing organic matters from vegetable decay reduce to the 
state of protoxide the peroxide of iron in sediments and remove it in a soluble form. 
The atmospheric oxygen again peroxidizing the iron, it is precipitated from these 
waters as hydrated peroxide, often combined with much organic matter (apocrenic, 
geic, or some allied acid). When owing to a complete oxidation of the organic 
matter the iron is held in solution as bi-carbonate, it may be deposited under condi¬ 
tions of diminished temperature and pressure in the form of carbonate, provided the 
air be excluded. In this way carbonate of iron is now being formed in the valley 
of Brohl in the Eifel, according to Bischof. 

6 Bischof, vol ii. pp. 570 to 583. 

# T. Sterry Hunt, Chemist to the Canada Geological Survey. Montreal, December 
1858. 




* 


366 PART n.- DIVISION II. 

In all these cases which result in the production of carbonate of protoxide of iron, 
hydrous peroxide or organic salts of the latter, the accumulation of this metal is 
dependent upon its removal from preexisting sediments. Accordingly we find that 
white clays and sands in recent deposits, not less than in the tertiary, cretaceous, 
carboniferous strata of various regions, are connected with the presence of beds of 
iron ores. In the same way we find in the oldest known rocks, those of the Lauren- 
tian system, on the one hand great deposits of iron ore, and on the other immense 
beds of soda-feldspar rocks almost entirely destitute of iron. Analogy leads us to 
suppose even here, as in the fire-clays and iron-stones of the coal period and the 
bleached sands and bog ores of the present time, the intervention of organic matters, 
a view which is strengthened by the presence of graphite in these strata, and even 
in the beds of magnetite themselves. Bitumen and an impure coal, according to 
Durocher, are associated with the iron ores of the Laurentian system in Scandinavia. 
The existence of graphite in magnetic iron ores is evidently fatal to the theory of 
their igneous origin. 

The intervention of soluble sulphates, as is well known, modifies the result of the 
reducing action of organic matters upon oxide of iron and gives rise to pyrites, a 
type of that reaction which has produced the falilbands (or interstratified beds im¬ 
pregnated with various metallic sulphurets), which are especially abundant in the 
older rocks 

The association of iron ores with magnesian rocks in various regions deserves to 
be noticed. We find carbonate of iron passing into highly ferriferous dolomites 
and magnesites; silicious beds of the latter yield as results of their alteration, mix¬ 
tures of talc and chlorite with crystalline oxides of iron, forming the rocks which 
have been named itabirite and catawbarite. 

Although organic matters have undoubtedly been the great agents in the forma¬ 
tion of iron ores, the intervention of mineral acids as a solvent of the oxide is not 
to be overlooked. The muriatic and sulphuric acids from volcanic and other sources 
give rise to solutions of iron, and the oxidation of pyrites and alum-schists affords 
sulphates both of iron and alumina. The decomposition of such solutions in limited 
basins by alkaline or earthy carbonates must give rise to deposits of oxide of iron, 

and where aluminous salts prevail alumina will be separated. .Such I conceive to 

# 

have been the origin of emery, which, as Lawrence Smith has shown, is essentially 
a mixture of crystalline alumina (corundum) with magnetite. 

In 1837 Fuclis published his reasoning against the view that 
the crystalline rocks were once in a state of fusion, as follows: 
using granite as the illustration. If granite were once in a mol¬ 
ten condition, then as it cooled, in the first place, quartz must 
have crystallized out, and would have sunk down through the 
still molten mass, while feldspar and mica must have crystallized 
at a much later stage of the cooling, as the necessary result rf 
their different degrees of fusibility. 7 Further, the inclusion of 
arsenical pyrites, sulphide of antimony, tourmaline, garnet, fluor¬ 
spar, etc., by quartz, is incompatible with the crystallization of 
the latter from a state of fusion. Accordingly the doctrine of 

7 Am. Jour. Science (2) xxiii—229. 


I 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


367 


upheavals cannot be sustained. In enunciating his own views, 
Fuchs begins with the proposition, that amorphism must pre¬ 
cede crystallization, and assumes that originally, the solid part 
of the earth consisted of silica and silicates in the amorphous 
form, while the liquid portions were largely made up of solutions 
of lime and magnesia or their carbonates, in the then existing 
excess of carbonic acid. “ This I conceive to have been the 
primal, or chaotic condition of our globe ; this may indeed have 
been preceded by another condition, but to this state it must 
have come before the formation of rocks could begin.” The 
formation of rocks, according to Fuchs, began with the silicates. 8 

As the maturity of vegetation is found to depend upon the 
actual amount of heat obtained from the sun during the season, 
and not upon the time during which it is obtained, so the 
various products of the mineral world seem to be due to a 
certain aggregate amount of heat, time being only one of the 
factors, intensity of action being the other. The furious heat of 
a blast furnace or a volcano may produce in a few weeks or 
days crystals and amorphous compositions which in the moist 
and equably low temperature of the earth’s crust have required 
centuries to mature. 

Prof. Hausniann of Gottingen, has recently published a memoir on the formation 
of minerals in and about furnaces by furnace action. He enumerates the following 
varieties observed by him: silver, lead, copper, iron, bismuth, lead-glance, blende, 
oxide of zinc, red-copper ore, iron-glance, magnetic iron ore, crysolite, pyroxene 
containing alumina, Humboldtite, orthoclase, lead-vitriol, and arseniate of nickel. 
Brown, yellow, green and black blende were observed formed in the furnaces of the 
Lauten valley, Hartz, in regular octahedrons and dodecahedrons; also in lamellar 
and radiated concretions. Lead-glance, he informs us, is often formed by sublima¬ 
tions in the chimneys of furnaces, and the crystals are cubical with the usual cleav¬ 
age ; and crystals of magnetic iron sometimes incrust cavities in the stone or brick¬ 
work of the furnaces. 9 

The Roxbury conglomerate of Massachusetts found by Dr. Hayes of Boston to be 
for the most part a silicate of lime containing chlorine is traversed by bold trap 
dykes containing an abundance of sulphuret of iron, and by fissures filled with 
quartz which Dr. Hayes calls sublimed. He thinks that the silicate of lime w r as 
formed by the transportation of silica in the heated vapor of water to combine with 
the lime and alumina muds of the original gravel deposit, and not by the decomposi¬ 
tion of chloride of calcium by hydrous silica. Dr. C. T. Jackson on the other hand 
in studying the various cements of sandstone and conglomerate, found sometimes 

8 A still stronger argument is advanced by Sorby. The water contained in granite 
ind other so called igneous rocks proves conclusively that they have never been in a 
aaolten condition, or at all events did not crystallize from such a condition. 

8 Ann. of Sci. Dis. 1854, p. 320. 


368 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


carbonate of lime, sometimes oxide of iron in excess, and sometimes a setting of 
the smaller sand and fragments as silicate of lime no doubt by decomposition of 
chloride of calcium, which is certainly a sea deposit, and which when pebbles are 
moistened with it and laid together will cement them with silicate of lime and let 
chlorine escape. The pebbles at Purgatory near Newport Rhode Island get their 
cement coating of specular iron from original chloride of iron sublimed (he thinks) 
by the heat from the neighboring trap dykes. 1 

On the other hand, M. de Sanarmont has been able to realize 
minerals in the humid way which have been hitherto considered 
solely of igneous origin. The following communication, read 
before the French Academy by M. de Sanarmont, is worth 
giving entire: 

Geology has means of investigation which are peculiar to itself, and now compre¬ 
hend a certain number of special truths definitely acquired to science. It is thus 
that Geology has been able, without foreign aid, to characterize the manner of the 
formation of the sedimentary rocks, and to arrange them in series; it is thus that 
it has succeeded in distinguishing in crystalline rocks, and in metalliferous reposi¬ 
tories different classes of which it can assign the probable origin; and in so far as 
it has not drawn conclusions too far removed from its fundamental principles, its 
anticipations have been almost always confirmed by experiment. It is to mineralo* 
gical chemistry that geology owes the useful experimental control of its rational 
conceptions. Crystalline minerals have, in fact, a complete chemical origin ; and 
a more thorough study and knowledge of them must be advanced by chemical 
experiment. , 

Chemistry, then, can do much for geology by lending its means for experiment; 
but upon the condition of itself remaining purely geological, and of borrowing in its 
turn particular means of study, and the general data which the science a priori has 
collected upon all the conditional peculiarities of structure, relative position, associa¬ 
tion or mutual exclusion, to which certain mineral species must needs be subject. 
In a word, it is necessary that all the circumstances where the natural operation 
has left characteristic traces, discovered by the geologist, should reappear in the 
artificial operation of the chemist. 

The experiments, then, of mineralogical synthesis should embrace the different 
groups of mineral species which are united in nature, and should support themselves 
upon certain probable geological inductions concerning the formation of the beds 
which they inclose. Certain isolated species have already been obtained, and prin¬ 
cipally those which approximate to the usual products according to the dry method. 
I have attempted to do more, and to discover some indices of the general causes 
which have originated the different classes of metalliferous beds. I commence this 
problem by the study of the concretionary veins which approach most nearly to 
the existing formations, and the principles I have just explained have been the 
starting point of the researches I <fcn about to submit to the Academy. 

The concretionary repositories seemed to be formed by solution ; the mineral 
3pecies w T e there find would then be the products of the humid method, derived 
from liquid deposits, and to a certain extent may be compared to geysers and ther¬ 
mal springs. Moreover, the principles most generally prevalent, even at the present 
day, in these springs, are the carbonic and hydrosulphuric acids, the alkaline salts, 


1 Annual of Sc. Dis. 1858, 26.* 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


369 


and amongst others the carbonates and the sulphates; these then are the reagents 
I propose first to employ. But amongst the different influences which may modify 
in the subterranean canals, the usual chemical reactions, we must undoubtedly 
reckon first pressure, and a temperature increasing indefinitely with the depth ; and 
I have endeavored to realize this double experimental condition. It is very evident 
that this creates numerous difficulties; and we must not be surprised if the crystal¬ 
line state of the products thus formed is sometimes imperfect, and always micro¬ 
scopic. Besides, it is not the size of the crystals which results from such problems, 
it is the mere fact of their creation; and in order to obtain more, all that is required 
is time, space and rest—powerful means which belong to nature alone. 

The method I have pursued essentially consists in producing all the chemical re¬ 
actions in a liquid condition, and in glass tubes, hermetically sealed, heated from 
100° to 350° C. I have almost solely employed solutions of carbonic and hydro- 
sulphuric gases, of bicarbonates and alkaline sulphurs, alone or mixed in variable 
proportions ; I have, then, I repeat, as a starting point, the composition of mineral 
waters and their most energetic principles. By these means of procedure I have 
artificially formed a great number of natural compounds. Each family of minerals 
generally group themselves around a common generating agent; so that we might 
then classify them thus in relation to the presumed composition of the thermal 
depositions which have served to produce them. I do not wish to make this ap¬ 
proximation too absolutely ; as it appears to me to go beyond the immediate inter¬ 
pretation of the facts; and I shall limit myself here to the mention of the com¬ 
pounds which I have obtained, and the different classes of minerals to which they 
belong. 

Native Metals .—Copper and silver, mixed but not combined, as observed in cer¬ 
tain mineral repositories in North America. Native arsenic. 

Oxides .— Red iron ore Fe 2 O 3 . Quartz Si O 3 , in regular six-sided prisms, acumi¬ 
nated with six planes, with striae, and sometimes with unequally developed acumi¬ 
nating planes, so frequent in natural crystals. Red copper ore, or red oxide of 
copper, in red shining translucent octahedrons. 

Carbonates .—Carbonates of magnesia, of iron, of manganese, of cobalt, of nickel, 
of zinc, of copper or malachite. 

Sulphates .—Sulphate of baryta, in the primitive form. 

Sulphurets. —Realgar, in transparent crystals, with the colors, lustre and form, 
as in mineral veins. Sulphuret of antimony, in acicular, shining, metallic-looking 
crystals. Sulphuret of bismuth with similar characters as the preceding. Sul¬ 
phurets of iron, of manganese, of cobalt, of nickel, of zinc, of copper. These last 
mentioned are massive, as is the case with those prepared in our laboratories; but 
it appears that the hydrosulphuric acid, under certain conditions of temperature 
and pressure, is a solvent of sulphurets, and a general agent of crystallization. The 
properties of this acid explain the accumulation of metallic sulphurets in the deep 
parts of mineral repositories, and of metallic carbonates near their crop, or out¬ 
goings. Arsenio-sulphurets and antimonio-sulphurets were also formed. 

Conclusions. —I had proposed to establish, upon experimental proofs, the contro¬ 
verted, and, as I think, very probable opinion, which attributes the filling up of the 
concretionary veins to incrusting thermal depositions, and to show that the forma¬ 
tion of a great number of minerals which we there meet, whether they be crystal¬ 
lized or amorphous, do not always pre-suppose conditions or agents far removed 
from the actual existing causes. We thus, in fact, perceive, that the two principal 
elements of the most widely extended thermal springs, the sulphurets and the alka- 

24 






370 


rART II.—DIVISION IL 


line bicarbonates, have sufficed to produce twenty-nine distinct mineral species, al¬ 
most all crystallized, belonging to all the great families of the chemical compounds 
peculiar to concretionary beds, each of which has some representatives in my ex¬ 
periments. Means of synthesis equally simple, applicable however to compounds 
as variable, give certainly a great probability to the speculative ideas which have 
directed me in these researches. It will moreover be necessary to diversify them 
to a much greater extent, and when we shall in the same manner have studied the 
different chemical agents, and the influences of every kind which can modify their 
effects, we shall undoubtedly succeed in defining the probable condition of the 
formation peculiar to each class of metalliferous beds; and in tracing their origin 
step by step, in the same order of systematic experiments, we may finally arrive at 
the crystallized rocks which associate themselves to these beds by methods and 
phenomena of continuity which it is impossible to mistake. 2 

All this goes to sustain the judgment of the eclectics who 
accept the igneous origin of lava rocks of every age and yet are 
disposed to acknowledge the increasing evidence in favor of the 
chemical and chemico-sedimentary origin of perhaps a majority 
of the silicious, dolomitic and metallic, and even a few of the 
trachytic and trappean members of the earth-crust, and certainly 
of almost all the so-called primary iron ores. The red specular 
or primary red hematite beds of the St. Lawrence are confessedly 
sedimentary. 

At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. Hayes 
exhibited some specimens, resembling Trachyte rock so closely, that most observers 
would have mistaken them for Trachyte. 

The specimens consisted of hand specimens, having the uneven fracture of tra¬ 
chyte, full of capillary passages, with some cavities ; there were fractured planes of 
brown and flesh-colored minerals, resembling feldspar, and some small red, brown- 
colored and black granules; but the most characteristic mark was the occurrence of 
angular fragments and grains of yellowish green color, hardly distinguishable from 
epidote by the eye. The external surface was brown and uneven, like that of a 
weathered basalt, or trap. The island from which these specimens came has been 
examined by a geologist, and from the prevalence of this rock, it is said that he 
pronounced the island to be of volcanic origin. A mass was sent to Dr. Hayes, and 
he found it had structural planes, the divisions producing trapezoidal masses, their 
surfaces and the lines marked by darker colors, and, so far as could be determined, 
there w r as evidence of the mass being part of a rock formation of some extent. 

The chemical composition discloses the remarkable fact that this rock is composed 
essentially of fish bones and altered shells, which ha^e passed through the alimen¬ 
tary canals of sea fowls. Referring to communications before made, 8 Dr. Hayes 
stated that the organic matter of fish bones in the droppings of fowl, reacts on the 
bone phosphate of lime, to eliminate acid salts of phosphoric acid, and these cement 
other portions, or decompose shells, wdiich are composed of carbonate of lime and 
animal tissues. The feldspar-like granules are generally compact, colored portions 
of converted shells, having a crystalline form, and there are aggregates of ferrugin- 

a Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1854, pp. 320-322. 

3 See Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1857, pp. 242, 243, 244. 


TIIE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


371 


ous nnd aluminous phosphates, arising from the same kind of action on ferruginous 
matter, which, in the form of a fine clay, or volcanic ash, has been brought within 
the sphere of the action of the acid phosphates. The cavities sometimes present 
minute crystalline facets of phosphate of lime crystals, while the capillary channels 
and pores, which give the trachyte-like character, are really the passages through 
which the carbonic acid and other gases escaped, during the transformation of the 
organic matter, precisely as they occur in basalt and trap, where igneous action has 
been supposed to have been influential. 

This rock is covered more or less by Atlantic guano rock, presenting the variety 
which consists of compact, light-colored phosphate of lime, containing about twenty 
parts in one hundred of carbonate of lime, and in some parts is a consolidated shell- 
bank ; the recent shells and coral fragments being visible. Where, through time 
and favorable exposure, the bone remains have thoroughly decomposed the shells, 
hand specimens would be mistaken for the flesh-colored, massive phosphate of lime 
of New Jersey. These more or less well cemented and altered rocks are also con¬ 
nected with still more recent deposits, retaining even the odorous animal remains of 
oily acids; and the whole formation, above that of the trachytic form of rock, con¬ 
tains the remains of infusoria. Thus a small island of the Atlantic, lying about 
eighteen degrees north of the equator, presents us with an epitomized succession of 
rock strata, formed from materials which, once endowed with life, have served to 
nourish other living systems, and then given rise to chemical changes, resulting in 
the production of various mineral solids which remain. The trachyte-like rock 
forming the basis rock of this island, theoretically, may have received its geological 
and chemical characters in ocean water. A subsidence of the land, after its surface 
had been deeply covered with organic remains, would allow of that aqueous action 
of decomposition and cementation which we notice, and the subsequent desiccation 
would explain the natural divisions by rents. The formation of silicates of iron, 
manganese, and alumina from phosphates of lime, is a mineralizing process which 
can take place in ocean water by infiltration, volcanic ashes, or divided materials 
of plastic rocks being present, as analysis shows them to be. The rock is hydrous, 
losing nearly 10 per cent of its weight by ignition, or water with a little organic 
matter, 10.00; bone phosphate of lime, 85.20 ; carbonate of lime, 3.00 ; oxides iron, 
manganese and alumina, 5.22; silicic acid and sand, 1.78; total, 105.20. The ex¬ 
cess of weight being due to the estimation of the phosphoric acid united to lime as 
bone phosphate of lime, while truly part of it, with a portion of silica, is united to 
the oxides present. 

These facts prove that mineral masses containing phosphate of lime, may be thus 
formed from animal phosphate of lime, and present all the characters which we 
recognize in the phosphate of lime contained in the oldest slates. Additional 
interest has been given to this subject by the investigations of Professor Booth of 
Philadelphia, and Dr. Piggott of Baltimore, who have analyzed specimens in which 
the phosphoric acid had combined with both oxide of iron and alumina. 4 

Mr. Taylor of Philadelphia exhibited to the Academy of Natural History there a 
fragment or ball apparently of trap involved in chalcedonic guano. 

Beds of carbonate of iron have been considered the natural 
chemical iron precipitations of the ocean charged with river 
solutions of the sulphate. But iron deposited from sea water. 


4 Ann. of Sci. Disc. Boston, 1858. 


372 


PART II.- DIVISION 


when the water was charged with organic matter, in ancient ns 
in modern days must have fallen in the form of a peroxide, and 
must have been mixed with a sediment from river and ocean 
currents of a very varied mineral character principally silicate 
of alumina and carbonate of lime and magnesia. Sorby’s paper 
on the Cleveland Ilill Iron-stones & shows by microscope and 
analysis how shells of carbonate of lime are replaced gradually 
by casts of carbonate of iron. Original deposits of mingled car¬ 
bonate of lime peroxide of iron would result in beds of carbonate 
protoxide of iron; 

(Peroxide iron - 

Carbonate lime . . makes . . Carbon. Protox. iron 

+ Oxygen set free) 

which would find many substances to oxidize and would busy 
itself first of all with any free hydrogen it could find, and then 
with any carbon of animal or vegetable matter. It is very 
likely that the excessive polarity of oxygen and hydrogen would 
read for us the riddle of most of these changes. If now the 
action of carb. protox. iron upon plios. of lime be (as it is) to produce 
phos. iron 

(Carb. protox. iron + 

Phosphate lime . . makes . . Phosphate iron 

+ Carbonate lime set free) 


and if there are indications that its effect upon sil. alumina 
(clay) is analogous 

J ' (Carb. protox. iron + 

Silicate alumina . . makes . . Silicate iron 

+ Alumina pure + Carbonic acid set free) 


then we have all the elements of the carbonate ore beds with 
their tinted white clays, and traceable impurities. 

Bischof found that carbonic acid was gradually separated from carbonate 
of lime by silicic acid with the cooperation of boiling water. This decompo¬ 
sition took place, whether the silicic acid was in a soluble or insoluble condition; 
for even finely pulverized quartz decomposed the carbonate of lime, the process in 
that case being rather slower. Carbonate of iron and the carbonate of magnesia 
behave in like manner; the latter is decomposed even more easily and in greater 
quantity than the carbonate of lime. The more facile decomposition of carbonate 
of magnesia is shown by the fact that even boiling water by itself separates the car¬ 
bonic acid from it, this not being the case with the carbonate of iron. When 
therefore either limestone, dolomite, or sparry iron, occurs at a depth beneath the 
earth’s surface where boiling-water-heat exists and water has access, carbonic acid 
will be driven off from these carbonated salts. The Soffoni in Tuscany, dischargin 
boiling hot water from crevices i-n limestone, must come from a depth where boilin 
heat exists, and it is very probable that the accompanying carbonic acid arises from 


6 In the Proc. of the Geol. and Poly. Soc. of the West Riding, July 30, 1856, p. 458. 


be tc 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


373 


the above mentioned causes. The same must be admitted for the carbonic acid 
discharged so abundantly in the neighborhood of ancient localities of volcanic action 
in various parts of central Europe. According to the laws of the increase of tem¬ 
perature towards the centre of the earth, we may calculate that boiling heat exists 
at a depth of about 8,600 feet in these districts, and this depth is certainly within 
the limits of the clay slate formation of Germany, which is calculated to be at least 
a mile (German) thick. Calcareous beds (transition limestone) and quartzose rocks 
occur at this depth ; waters penetrate thereto, and carbonic acid is separated from 
the limestone, as in the above mentioned experiments. To account therefore for 
the origin of carbonic acid exhalations, we need no more assume that the focus 
must be where red heat exists, which presupposes a depth of at least five miles 
(German) ; for the clay slate or any other sedimentary formation may be the seat 
of the evolution of the gas, since only in the moderate depths of about half a mile 
(German) the materials required are present. 6 

Taking the deposits of carbonate of iron as a new starting 
point at a subsequent era, namely, when the deposits were up¬ 
lifted, truncated, dried and exposed to the chemical action of 
the atmosphere, we merely get the phenomena of the coal 
measures with their hematized outcrops and solid unchanged 
carbonate beds. If then we see by the supposition once solid 
carbonate beds changed into solid amorphous or crystalline 
peroxide or proto-peroxide beds, the change must have been 
effected at a time previous to the uplift and exposure—except 
of course in the presence of volcanic dykes which all agree 
effects the transformation in open air. It is necessary therefore 
to consider the change as effected during the earliest times, 
earlier than the early outlifts- Speculatively there are but two 
agencies at our command for this purpose, interior heat and 
electro-magnetic action with moisture under pressure. The 
suggestion, that the original peroxide iron deposit may however 
have been elevated too soon after its deposition to have suffered 
the change to carbonate, is met by the fact that in going back 
to peroxidation the carbonate in open air always becomes a 
hydrated brown peroxide. This gossan at the outcrop of an 
ancient vein is always broadly distinguishable from the specular 
anhydrous peroxide body of it. How must we account for the 
^hydrous state then of ancient veins, say of the ITuronian and 
Lawrentian rocks ? Are they original local, perhaps subcerial , 
perhaps marshy deposits of hydrous brown hematites deprived 
of their water by subsequent heat ? Those who consider the 
metamorphosis of the inclosing rocks due to a sub-igneous pro- 

8 Ann. Sci. Disc. 1852, p. 288. 


\ 


374 


PAliT II.—DIVISION II. 


cess will readily allow us to use this explanation. Were they 
original deey sea deposits of hydrous peroxide dried by the same 
similar semi-volcanic heat during the times when the deep sea 
was tilling up its bed ? or hydrous peroxides deposited around 
springs in the bed of a slowly sinking sea ? 

The red anhydrous peroxide beds of the Huronian or Upper 
Azoic rocks may be ancient hydrated brown hematite beds 
deprived in some way of their water, say by a steady universal r ' 
temperature of the inclosing rocks sufficiently high; a cause 
which will be readily allowed by those who consider the meta- 
morphism of the inclosing rocks to be a sub-igneous process. 
We have anhydrous red oxide oolitic and fossiliferous beds in 
the Upper Silurian formation (No. Y. Clinton group) of the 
United States and in the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Super-creta¬ 
ceous Middle Tertiary beds of Champagne and Berry in Europe, 
which could not have been originally formed as hydrates and 
then dehydrated by heat, for the rocks on and in which they 
lie are in an unchanged state. If originally hydrates, some chemi¬ 
cal action has removed the water from these ores, and the same 
action could go on at earlier ages, among the Huronian deposits. 

The same train of thought takes up the anhydrous peroxide 
crystallized specular iron ores, and finally the partially deoxidized 
proto-peroxide magnetic ores, which have been considered par 
excellence igneous products. It is granted that these are con¬ 
fined to the oldest of all known rocks, and therefore have been 
subjected for the longest time to the slowest and therefore the 
most powerfully alterative living chemistry of the planet. If 
we suppose them to have been deposited at first as beds of 
impure carbonate of iron, there is no difficulty in picturing them 
changing to brown hydrous hematites, then suffering dehydra¬ 
tion, and finally partial deoxidation by the most probable and 
yet the most powerful of our laboratory reagents, hydrogen. If 
it be asked where is the hydrogen to come from, the answer is 
given by whatever modification of Davy’s theory may be 
adopted; the oxidation of the earthy bases by water sets free 
hydrogen (it has been detected in volcanic eruptions), which in 
its way through the earth crust must seize upon all peroxidated 
materials and protoxidize them, as it does in a hot glass tube. 
Dr. Euhler finds that even sulphate of lime (and to the extent of 
tons at once) is reduced by organic matter in a state of active 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


375 


fermentation (sulphide of calcium being thrown down and sul¬ 
phuretted hydrogen being set free 7 ), not by the affinity of oxygen 
for carbon or carbon for lime or sulphur for hydrogen but by 
the intense affinity of hydrogen for nitrogen. But this fact 
comes in to our third chapter. Here it is only intended to 
suggest possible or probable methods of obtaining iron in any 
of its mineral combinations in the oldest rocks without having 
resort to the igneous theory, and without doing violence to the 
known conditions under which the majority of primitive veins 
are seen. The mere fact that grains of hydrous red oxide are 
disseminated through jurassic and other unchanged strata, just 
as crystals of magnetic and specular iron are through the meta- 
m orphic older slates and sandstones—taken in connection with 
the fact that all mica-rocks must contain at least 14 per cent of 
their proportion of mica in the form of iron—shows how chemi¬ 
cal changes from one form of iron ore to another explain the 
once considered igneous outbursts of our older ores. The 
granites so called (but they are properly metamorphic sand¬ 
stones) of the Highlands of the Hudson contain zircons and 
octahedral crystals of iron ; of course both are chemical, not 
volcanic, productions. The so-called granite of Clinton county 
in northern Hew York, properly metamorphic Lawrentian sand 
stone is traversed by lodes of magnetic iron, as at the state 
prison, and at Arnold hill; but one of the “veins” in Arnold 
hill is a peroxide f it would consequently seem that they must 
all have been chemical and not volcanic productions. The 
“ granite ” of the Thousand islands of the St. Lawrence contains, 
(with peroxide of iron, sulphuret of iron and copper barytes, 
strontia and fluor spar, 9 ) the carbonate of strontia and therefore 
can hardly be an igneous production ; and Emmons adds that 
“ its ores and minerals occur in nests and strings which run out 
and hence has ever proved an unsafe rock in mining,” which 
looks still less like volcanic eruption. The kind of “ granite ” 
called hypersthene containing lime and soda, but very little 

^ See Bischof, Lehrbuch der Chemischen und Physikalischen Chcmie, i. 653, i. 655, 
i. 661, i. 533, etc.—F. A. Genth. 

8 Emmons’s American Geol. vol. i. p. 67. 

8 The law of the diffusion of fluorine may be thus expressed: There is fluorid of 
calcium in all waters containing bicarbonate af lime and therefore there may be fluorine 
in all rocks and minerals formed in a sedimentary way.—J. Nickles, in Silliman’s 
Journal , Jan. 7, 1858, p. 119. 


376 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


quartz and no mica, being in fact merely a Huronian sandy 
magnesian limestone with from 5 to 25 per cent of iron in it 
without the shadow of a claim to plutonic origin, has neverthe¬ 
less grains of magnetic iron disseminated through its strata, 
which form the Adirondac mountains west of Lake Champlain. 
And it is in these hypersthene Huronian strata just underneath 
the Potsdam sandstone or the base of the Lower Silurian palaeo¬ 
zoic rocks, that the great magnetic iron ore beds of northern 
Hew York, sometimes charged with phosphate of lime, appear, 
and always in the form of ehemico-sedimentary beds, never in 
the form of igneous veins. Here it is that Emmons finds his 
numerous evidences of the igneous origin of jorimary lime¬ 
stones ! 1 —limestone beds which he traces through the States of 
Hew York and Hew Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia into 
the Carolinas, and yet are universally acknowledged to be 
merely metamorphosed Lower Silurian limestones everywhere 
along this continental belt; limestones which contain dissemi¬ 
nated octahedral and magnetic iron crystals, graphite, phosphate 
of lime, spinelle, etc. etc. and always appear in the immediate 
vicinity of the magnetic ore beds of the Highland—South 
Mountain—Blue Ridge range. The serpentine marbles of 
Milford and Hew Haven in Connecticut and the serpentines 
of Vermont and eastern Canada known to be metamorphosed 
(Hudson river) (Jpper Silurian magnesian sediments, as well as 
the older Azoic (Huronian) serpentines of Horthampton and 
Lancaster counties Pennsylvania and St. Lawrence county Hew 
York contain or are immediately associated w r ith either chromic 
or titaniferous iron or both. The serpentine is not always mas¬ 
sively bedded but often laminated like gneiss or altered sandy 
shales. It usually passes into or lies in contact with steatite 
(true soap-stone) and its igneous origin is now pretty nearly 
given up. 2 Even Emmons says that “ the evidence of its igneous 
origin is less than that of primary limestone,” and that he has 
never seen it in narrow veins and dykes like greenstone. The 
Vermont serpentines are perfectly sedimentary, and the Canada 
serpentines are seen passing into Hudson river strata (at the 
top of Formation III.) That of Troy Vermont near the Canada 
line is traversed by a wedge form vein of magnetic iron. 3 The 


1 See his treatise on pyrocrystalline limestone in American Geology, vol. i. p. 77. 

2 It is a hydrous bisilicate of magnesia. Emmons’s Am. Geol. p. 85. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


377 


large quantities of silicious sinter in the serpentine ot Macon 
Georgia 4 suggests a liot-spring origin for the serpentine, and 
recalls the buhrstone deposit with its iron ore of the coal 
measures. The serpentines of St. Lawrence county New York 
are often associated with earthy oxides of iron containing angu¬ 
lar pieces of quartz from' to -J- inch diameter closely invested 
with serpentine ; the ore and serpentine are here “ somewhat 
blended with ” the Potsdam sandstone. 5 The serpentine belt of 
Port Henry decomposes into a scoria as if it had been originally 
porous and the pores filled with carbonate of lime, 0 or more 
likely an original mixed precipitate in which the carbonate of 
lime segregated into innumerable small nodules. There are 
sedimentary serpentines of Devonian (Waterlime) age near Syra¬ 
cuse in western New York, nowhere near erupted rocks and 
therefore sedimentary, perhaps through hot springs. 

At the Parrish i^ine St. Lawrence county according to 
Emmons’ drawing (Fig. 13 page 88, American Geology) the 
mass of “ rather silicious ” ore capped by horizontal Potsdam 
sandstone (No. 1), rests on or against a “ protruded ” mass of 
serpentine on the other side of which gneiss rocks slope down 5 
covered with Potsdam sandstone. He remarks that a similar 
dislocation is known in a contiguous vein known as the Kearney 
ore bed. But in Fig. 15 (page 89) he draws the Theresa specu¬ 
lar ore beds as a regular deposit dipping both ways across a 
broken anticlinal, in the axis of which is seen a grand radiation 
downwards of serpentine resembling very much an emerging 
Vesuvius. “Instances of the same kind and character” he 
continues “ might be multiplied,” and “ the facts revealed by 
the relations of the associated rocks support the view that 
serpentine is truly an eruptive rock and belongs to the same 
class as granite and sienite.” But he also says on the same 
page (88) that limestone intermixed with serpentine appears in 
the gneiss on the east side of the harbor at Whitehall and has 
disturbed the superincumbent Potsdam sandstone. The truth 
is that all these drawings are too much distorted to convey the 
proper meaning of the local geology which they are intended 
to represent and therefore confound instead of enlightening the 
judgment. They bear no geological resemblance to the origi- 

4 Emmons's Am Geol p. 85. 5 Emmons’s Am. Geol. p. 87. 

6 Emmons’s Am. Geol. p. 85. 


378 


PART IT.- DIVISION II. 


nals. They serve only to establish a fact directly at variance 
with the conclusion of their author, to wit, that in all these 
instances serpentine and iron ore appear at the top of the gneiss 
just beneath the Potsdam sandstone, and near limestone; which 
when more carefully considered means in the extreme bottom 
rocks of the Lower Silurian or Palaeozoic series; just where 
they reappear in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In fact he 
gives in fig. 27 on page 95 of his New York Report the “ ser¬ 
pentine highly charged with quartz,” quietly and conformably 
dipping 50° between regular layers of u sandstone intimately 
mixed with peroxide of iron, with which also there are rich 
masses of ore.” Further illustration is needless. The serpen¬ 
tines cannot be eruptive; and, conversely, must be sedimentary. 
And Professor Emmons instinctively feeling the force of this 
conclusion announces it himself on page 89 by describing u the 
serpentine belt ” as “ coextensive with $ie Green Mountains, 
Highlands and Blue Ridge as far south as Georgia, and chromi- 
ferous through its entire extent.” Yet he goes on to quote Dr. 
Jackson’s single locality of serpentine in Maine on Deer island, 
connected with that mass of the Grand Menan in Nova Scotia 
as “ erupted through granite.” The serpentines of Johnstown 
Canada West like those of northern New York, he says, differ 
from the great Atlantic belt by showing graphite, amphibole 
and pyroxene commonly, whereas these minerals are rare (as 
belonging to the serpentine itself) in the belt referred to. This 
is a just distinction. The two are of similar origin, but of 
different ages. The serpentines at least of the Green Mountains 
are as late as the close of the Lower Silurian age. The others 
just precede or accompany its opening. This explains the fact 
which Dr. Emmons thinks “ rather remarkable, that serpentine 
though it forms by itself hills of a moderate elevation, yet does 
not appear in the higher parts of the Appalachians.” If erup¬ 
tive and in such masses as he describes it in Franklin, Macon and 
Cherokee counties North Carolina, and of any age (as a true 
eruptive rock must be), it would have formed mountains, or 
appeared at times at the summit of the Blue Ridge and High¬ 
lands. But being a sedimentary rock associated with the soft 
magnesian limestones and slates of the Hudson river group— 
and with the limestones and slates of the Potsdam and upper¬ 
most azoic rocks, its place is in the valley, at the edges of the 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


379 


great valley, at tlie base of tlie Nortli mountain, and at the base 
on each side of the South mountain and there it must stay; for 
the mountain “ granite ” itself is not eruptive but sedimentary, 
of a fixed age, appearing in a fixed place and occupying a well 
established line not of outburst, but of simple upheave and 
denuded outcrop, through the Atlantic States. 

Chromic iron is one of the most constant companions of serpentine, and magnetic 
iron and copper occur in it also. Rammelsberg has published an elaborate investi¬ 
gation of the titaniferous iron ores the principal results of which are given in Silli- 
man’s Journal as follows: (1.) The greater number of the titaniferous iron ores, 
among them all the crystallized forms, consist of 1 equivalent of titanic acid and l 
of protoxide of iron (protox. of manganese or magnesia). (2.) Magnesia is an 
essential constituent of all these ores and in the crystallized mineral from Layton to 
the extent of 14 per cent. (3.) Mosander’s theory, that the titaniferous iron ores 
are either simple titanates of protoxide iron (with isomorphed admixtures of titan, 
mag.), or mixtures of such with sesquioxide iron for the most part in simple propor¬ 
tions—is preferable to Rose’s that these ores are isomorph sesquioxide of titanium 
and iron (involving therefore the assumption of a sesquioxide of magnesium). (7.) 
No titaniferous iron crystallizing in regular octahedrons is known; the dense masses 
or octahedral grains are mixtures. (8.) Crystallized magnetic iron ores contain no 
titanium; they consist of one atom protoxide and one atom sesquioxide. (9.) All 
the Elba iron ore does not contain titanium, but all (like that of Vesuvius) contains 
magnesia and protoxide iron. (10.) The strongly magnetic octahedrons from 
Vesuvius, hitherto considered as a specular iron, which are accompanied by rhom- 
bohedrons of specular iron, contain in part large quantities of magnesia and in 
part protoxide of iron and consist either of magnetic iron partially converted into 
sesquioxide iron and of isomorphous magnesia + perox. iron—or more probably 
of two protoxides (isomorphous) with sesquioxide of iron (itself dimorphous). 7 

In spite of all that has been said tlie presence of trap dykes 
is sure to develop in a peroxide bed magnetic ore and to lend 
a strong color thus to the igneous theory. 

Magnetic octahedral and also massive ore is found according to Dawson B in trap 
on Partridge Island and in the North mountains of King’s county Nova Scotia; and 
tabular crystals of specular ore at Sandy Cove. But these minerals are in so small a 
quantity as to be of no mining importance. Geologically they are interesting because 
the trap accompanies the newer secondary (New Red) sandstone in Nova Scotia, as 
in New England and the Middle States, where it develops magnetic iron in deposits 
lying at the borders of the red sandstone but belonging to the Lower Silurian 
slates on which it rests; as will be said hereafter. 

Taking up the beds of Primary ores in an order from north¬ 
east to southwest, beginning with Nova Scotia, New Bruns¬ 
wick and Canada, tracing the great azoic belt through the sea¬ 
board States, and concluding with the inland islands of Mis¬ 
souri and Arkansas, the first we find described is of peculiar 


i poggendorf s Annals civ. 497. 


8 Acadian Geology, 1855, p. 99. 



380 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


interest, reopening the whole ground of the foregoing discus¬ 
sion. 

Along the Nova Scotian isthmus runs the metamorphic 
(gneissoid) range of the Cobequid hills, over a thousand feet 
high, and supposed by Dawson to be Devonian and Upper Silu¬ 
rian ; “ there is no reason,” he says, “ to believe any of them 
older,” although Marcou on purely theoretical grounds makes 
them of azoic age by identifying them ■with one of Elie de Beau¬ 
mont’s European crystalline axes. Along the southern side of 
this range the carboniferous rocks abut against the devonian, 
not in a regular line of superposed outcrops, but along a great 
northeast dislocation with a downthrow to the southeast, in 
some kind of connection with which runs the great ore bed of 
the region, best seen near the Great Village and Folly rivers. 
The vein has been long known; was described by Duncan 
about 1835, explored by Daw^son in October 1845, reported on by 
Archibald and Dawson of London in 1846, examined again by 
J. L. Hayes of Portsmouth and Dawson in 1849, and opened at 
the erection of the Acadia furnace on the Great Village river. 
Here the carboniferous and metamorphic strata come together 
on a strike line N. 55° E., grey and brown sandstones and shales 
S. 65°+ meeting black and olive slates nearly vertical, giving 
place at the falls a little north of the spot to grey quartzite and 
olive slates, beyond and still among which stands the vein. This 
looks as if it were of devonian age. Dawson goes on to say 
that in the bed of the river it is a network of fissures penetrated 
with quartzite and slate and filled with a crystalline compound 
of the carbonates of lime, iron and magnesia (a kind of ankerite) 
with a smaller quantity of red ochery and micaceous specular 
ore. This again looks like original ferruginous magnesian lime¬ 
stone beds slightly hematized and then metamorphosed. The 
hill is 327 feet high. Up this the bed grows wider and more 
ferriferous. At one place a trench across it shows 120 feet of 
ore. Its underlay to the south is regular and in the plane of 
stratification, but its other wall is irregular, and it contains horses 
of quartzite and olivanous slate with slickensides, especially 
large and numerous in the centre of the bed. It contains nearly 
pure peroxide, in black scales and masses; magnetic ore “intro¬ 
duced” with the last “into the vein by sublimation” (Dawson); 
ochery red ore, rich, fusible and most abundant, of variable 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


381 


quality, some of it nearly pure; and the triple Q . 

carbonate (ankerite) some of it tinged red and ° Va C ° ia * 
containing scattered specular crystals, perox. iron 33, carb. 
iron 19.5, carb. lime 46, carb. mag. and sand 1. The white 
variety has no peroxide but only carb. iron 23, carb. lime 54, 
carb. mag. 22. There are also little veins of yellowish sparry 
carbonate containing carb. mag. 20. running through the anker¬ 
ite. “ I have no doubt says Dawson that all these substances 
have been molten by heat and injected from beneath into the 
irregular fissure in which they are now found. The ochery red 
ore appears to be a result of the subsequent action of heat on the 
spathose iron.” Certainly in the face of all the iron-ore phe¬ 
nomena of the coal measures, this is an unwarrantable hypothe¬ 
sis. On the outcrop of the vein yellow ochery iron ore contain¬ 
ing balls of hydrous brown hematite abounds. Sulphate of 
baryta lines the fissures and fills small veins through the 
ankerite veinstone a white and coarse crystalline mass turning 
yellow and decomposing to a brown hematite. In some parts it 
is full of crystals and veinlets of yellowish spathic iron, and it is 
traversed by veins of red ochre even 6 feet thick and shapeless 
masses still thicker; also by irregular small specular veins and 
nests and disseminated crystals. At one part is a large mass of 
mixed magnetic and specular ore. Surely this bears no resem¬ 
blance to an outflow of cast iron or homogeneous lava. 
Numerous transverse joints have apparently slightly heaved 
the vein, showing slickensides or coated with slate and ore. 
One of them is filled with flesh-colored sulphate of baryta an 
inch thick. The vein runs eastward magnetic N.98°E (varia¬ 
tion 21°W) a course deviating about 33° from the containing 
rocks at Acadia, but much less elsewhere “ and in general 
there is an approach to parallelism between the course of the 
vein and that of the rock formation of the hills, as well as that 
of the junction of the carboniferous and metamorphic systems.” 
For several miles the distance between the vein and the lowest 
coal bed to the south of it is from 300 to 500 yards and the vein 
is “ always is the same band of slate and quartzite.” In its 
westward course large masses of specular ore are found in 
Cook’s brook a mile from Acadia and a shaft 40 feet deep 
goes through its gossan ; it has not been traced by Dawson 
beyond Martin brook, but he has received specimens of ore and 


382 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


ankerite from the Five-islands twenty miles further on. East¬ 
ward a little copper pyrites was found on the vein which can 
be traced to the East fork, where the south dipping conglome¬ 
rates rest uniformly on olive, black and brown (Devonian 
~No. VIII?) slates striking N75East. Still further east Folly 
river shows the coarse grey S20°W dipping conglomerate 
rests on slate striking S70°W succeeded by 700 yards of 
quartzite up to the falls (55 feet high). These beds con¬ 
tain a few veins of ankerite and strings of ore but of no conse¬ 
quence. Above the falls they continue dipping 55° S for a 
quarter of a mile to a dyke of fine-grained hornblendic 
igneous rock. East of Folly river however the vein is largely 
developed where the Londonderry Mining Company’s tunnel 
passes in northward through 190 feet of grey quartz and olive 
slate (and three feet of black slate) with a few strings of 
ankerite growing 17 feet thick at the broken irregular south 
wall of the vein, when it strikes red ore with specular nests 
and decomposed veins and blocks of ankerite and fragments of 
rock and goes through all this 10 feet without striking the north 
wall. Another digging further east finds neither north nor 
south wall. The vein is 13 feet thick with the micaceous spe¬ 
cular ore more abundant and large rounded blocks of ankerite 
and angular fragments of rock. The same appearance of trans¬ 
verse vertical layers seen at the Acadia mine is observed here. 
Further east a cross trench 53 feet long is still in red and spe¬ 
cular ore and ankerite. The vein was last seen by Dawson 
beyond Mill brook and he believes it to proceed far to the east. 
While he believes in its igneous origin he says “ it is evidently 
wedge shaped, being largest and richest on the surface of the 
highest ridges,” an apparent contradiction. The varied char¬ 
acter of the bed is objectionable both in mining and in smelt¬ 
ing, but the ore is too pure and abundant not to be worked in 
time to great advantage. 

The above detailed description of this remarkable deposit has 
been given here because it shows the difficulties of the subject, 
and because it holds a middle station between the sedimentary 
coal-measure carbonate beds and the specular and magnetic 
beds of the primary rocks. Mr. Dawson describes u other and 
conformable beds of iron ore in the Devonian slates of Morse 
river Hictau, and East river Pictou, consisting of scales of 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


383 


specular ore firmly cemented together and __ 
intermixed with silicious and calcareous mat- ° Va C ° ia " 
ter. At Morse river the ore has been in part converted into 
magnetic ore. At hsictau a bed of excellent ore 6 feet thick 
yields 55 per cent. At East river is a silicious bed of great size, 
yielding 40 per cent iron, not now worked, yet only ten miles 
from the Albion coal mines.” 9 

In Mew Brunswick many small veins of magnetic ore 
sometimes ramifying through magnesian rocks have been 
noticed by Gesner in his annual reports. About 1J- miles west 
of Bull Moose Hill an abundance of coarse bog ore led to the 
discovery of a wide vein of magnetic ore running apparently 
several miles and within three miles of the bay into which 
Bellisle river runs. It runs through hornblende and feldspar 
rocks, and lies in the exact prolongation of argillaceous oxide 
beds in slate on the west side of the Long Beach on the oppo¬ 
site side of the Saint John, 25 miles distant. 1 

In Canada East Sir William Logan reports a magnetic ore 
bed six to eight yards wide in gneiss and 150 yards long, cut 
off with the gneiss by syenite, a little mixed with gneissic 
matter, but yielding 52 per cent of iron. Two other exhibitions 
of ore of little known value as yet are possibly in the same 
range and if so their common relation to certain Lawrentian 


limestone outcrops personally traced in zigzags for 80 miles by 
this distinguished and indefatigable geologist is of the highest 
interest, and would go far to settle the non-igneous origin of the 
oldest ores. The distance from the limestone is about a mile. 3 

In the early report of Mr. Murray in 1846 3 we learn that the 
region of the Ottowa river is provided with magnetic and 
specular iron ores in many beds in Bedford, Bastard, Sher¬ 
brooke. In Hull township a magnetic ore 20 feet thick strikes 
north-northwest for perhaps a mile along a hollow bordered by 
nearly vertical syenitic gneiss stratified on the western side 
with white micaceous and graphitous granular limestones, 
white granular limestones occurring also on the east. The 
Sherbrooke bed on the north side of Myer’s lake is an impor¬ 
tant mass of ore. In Ross township the ore vein cuts white 
granular limestone, steep, and underlaid by syenitic gneiss with 


® Dawson’s Acadian Geology, p. 328 to 342. 
1 Report (Third Annual), p. 54. 


3 Report of Progress, 1857, p. 40. 
3 p. 76. 


384 


rART II.-DIVISION II. 


hornblende and feldspar, in fact nearly a greenstone ; it seemed 
to interlace and ramify through the limestone filling cracks 
from yL to 3 inches thick, sometimes turning off and running 
several yards in the strike of the limestone. It exhibits a pas¬ 
sage from octahedral to cubic ore. Micaceous specular ore 
occurs 5 inches wide on the Lac des chats at Hudson’s wharf, 
where white granular limestone (with mica and pyrites) under¬ 
lies red syenitic gneiss. [This strongly reminds one of the 
deposits of brown oxide at the bottom of sandstones or sandy 
shales on top of limestone in the palaeozoic rocks unchanged.] 
Its gangue here is quartz in the proper rock-strike. A fine vein 
12 feet thick is seen on the opposite side of the lake dipping 

5 22° W <70° over 100 feet of crystalline limestone and 
under compact grey limestone. It probably runs more than a 
mile and is lost in a swamp; weathers earthy red; breaks pur¬ 
plish red, in minute scales. 

In Maine the most extensive deposit knowm at present is on 
the Aroostook river fifty miles above its mouth, a bed of red 
hematite fully 36 feet thick containing considerable manganese 
and shut up in metamorpliic calcareous slates. A similar bed 
occurs near Woodstock in Hew Brunswick on the St. John’s, 
where a charcoal furnace was erected in 1848. The ore could 
be delivered for 40 cents per ton. Thin magnetic ore veins 
are numerous along the coast. 4 

In New Hampshire, Amherst, multitudes of crystals of 
magnetic iron ore from one to two inches diameter, showing a 
passage from the octahedral to the rhombic, fall out of the 
decomposing granite rocks. 5 

In New Hampshire, Winchester, two miles south-south 
west of the church near the summit of Iron Hill, excavations 
abandoned before 1800 revealed beds of magnetic ore from 5 or 

6 to 30 or 40 feet thick inclosed in gneiss and running N10° 
E one of them with a 30° to 50° dip west had been worked out 
8 feet deep 200 feet along. The largest bed dips 40° east. The 
plan given on page 125 of the Report would show an anticlinal 
structure of the gneiss and a synclinal structure of the ore, but 
the section on page 126 shows no synclinal. The ore is heavy, 
massive, steel grey, thick bedded, with a little of it containing 


4 Whitney, p. 453. 


6 C. T. Jackson’s Rep. p. 116. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


385 


pyrites, but easily picked pure. Rhode __ T _ , . 
t, i 1 TT 1 • T 1 A i i -i New Hampshire. 
Island people, Hawkins, J enks, Arnold and 

Cahoon, first smelted it in 1795 in a furnace where Furnace vil¬ 
lage now stands in the west part of the town. 6 

Heavy compact magnetic ore in small beds (less than a foot 
wide) occur in the non-micaceous granite of Thorn Mountain 
in Jackson New Hampshire, but can be useful for nothing but 
to mix with the Bald Face Mountain ore. The same occur in 
Piermont, near specular ore with sulphate of baryta, etc. 

The great deposit of New Hampshire is in Bald Face 
Mountain one of the white hills between the rocky branch of 
the Saco and Ellis rivers in Bartlett, near the south line of Jack- 
son. The mountain is “ granite” with a few veins of green¬ 
stone trap. The iron ore occurs 1,404 feet above the Saco and a 
mile distant. One of the veins at the upper openings in 1844 
was 37 feet wide east and west and 16 north and south, and the 
same in the opening 200 feet lower down the slope; 300 feet 
lower it is 10 feet and 400 feet lower 55 feet wide. It narrows 
again at 546 feet. A second large vein runs 250 feet west of the 


first. A third is indicated 50 feet further west. The general 
strike seems to be N37°E strike of the range. The ore is chiefly 
peroxide with some protoxide and a little oxide of manganese. 7 

The Franconia vein runs between granite walls N30°E, 
dipping 70° to 80° southeast. It was opened 40 rods long and 
144 feet deep. When first opened it was 6 feet wide and 
diminished to 1J feet. 8 Hot blast was introduced into Franconia 
furnace in 1844. In Benton magnetic ore from 6 inches to 3 
feet wfide quite irregular runs north in granular quartz. 9 

In Vermont 1 magnetic ore-crystals laminae and fragments 
are widely disseminated and abound throughout the talcose and 
chlorite slates of the Green Mountains. These slates are meta¬ 
morphosed Silurian or Devonian (No. Ill or VIII*) and else¬ 
where are full of crystals of sulphuret of iron. In Plymouth 
near the north line of the town, where the limestone (No. II) 


joins the talc slate, a vein of mixed magnetic and specular ore 
occurs dipping 70° east and the adjacent limestone beds are full 
of crystals of magnetic ore. In other counties fragments have 


8 C. T. Jackson’s Rep. 1844, p. 126. 
s C. T. Jackson’s Rep. p. 74. 

1 See Adams’ 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th Annual Reports, 

25 


T C. T. Jackson’s Report, p. 79. 
8 p. 109. 

1845-1848. 


* Hitchcock. 







386 


rART IT.-DIVISION II. 


been found. A curious vein of hornblende and magnetic ore 
8 feet wide exists in Brandon on the top of the Green Moun¬ 
tain. Specular ore is seen in Chittenden, Brandon, Middlebury 
and Lincoln, and another range commences in Milton and seems 
to run through Franklin county into Canada. In Milton near 
the lake shore red-oxide of iron was once mined dipping 10° 
southeast, a mixture of ore and sandy limestone, the middle ot the 
vein being heavy ore. . A few rods northwest of West Berk¬ 
shire village the same ore is seen in talc slate (met. No. III?). 
In Crittenden the granular quartz rock of the west slope of the 
mountains contains line granular and crystalline specular ore, 
but not in regular veins. The crystals are pseudomorphs, non¬ 
magnetic red streak octahedrons and the rock has lost its strati¬ 
fication. Most of the smaller crystals are magnetic; some show 
a gradation into specular. 2 — Chrome iron has been found in the 
serpentines of Newfane.— Titaniferous magnetic ore, in the 
east range of serpentine (Lower Silurian No. Ill) east of the 
Missisco river, occurs in a vertical vein, traceable two miles, 
4 feet wide and regular, free from admixture with serpentine 
and yielding peroxide iron 81.20, protoxide iron 13.37, titanic 
acid 4.10, silica 1.33 (metallic iron 66.62). In 1844 600 tons of 
pig iron were made of it. 

The best known metamorphic iron ores of Massachusetts 
occur at ILawley in Franklin county in mica slate; two beds, 
ten feet apart, one magnetic oxide, the other a beautifully 
micaceous specular ore bed 2J feet thick. 3 The partial deoxida¬ 
tion of one of these beds while the other remained saturated, 
may be hard to explain, but is an all-sufficient evidence of the 
non-igneous, that is, of the chemico-sedimentary nature of its 
origin. In Connecticut a few magnetic ore beds have been 
found in metamorphic rocks, but not exploited. 

In Northern New York, Essex and Clinton counties con¬ 
tain the best known azoic or primary magnetic and specular 
ores. St. Lawrence, Franklin and Jefferson counties contain 
some of less importance. Prof. Emmons, Prof. Beck and Prof. 
Hodge have reported upon these officially or otherwise. In most 
cases they are massive layers of ore between gneissoid rocks 


2 See other instances Trans. Amer. Assoc. Geologists, vol. i. p. 251. 
2 Whitney, p. 460, Hodge, American R. R. Journal No. 684. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


387 


(altered sliales and sandstones) always in the ^ ew York 
line of strike, hut not always seeming to 
Dr. Emmons to he in the plane of dip. 

“ Should I attempt to describe these masses (he says) I could convey an idea of 
them in no better language than to speak of them as ledges, cliffs or rocks of iron 
ore, exhibiting the same structure, natural joints or divisional planes as other rocks. 
Such is certainly the structure in the midst of the mass ; but when the ore is situ¬ 
ated near the rock, it gradually takes in a greater proportion of earthy matter or 
portions of the rock and perhaps becomes incorporated therewith ; but at other 
times it sends off branches into the adjacent rock as in the annexed sketch.” 5 

Dr. Emmons gives numerous figures to show the parallel ar¬ 
rangement of the crystals and lenticular masses of purer ore in 
the magnetic beds, 6 which can be best understood by recalling the 
bony and sulphurous layers in coal beds, all of them more or less 
lenticular in shape and showing how numerous and shifting were 
the nuclei or centres of formation, as the successive layers of the 
bed went on.—The specular ore occurs also according to Emmons 
in masses and in veins, both as a red powder and as a steel- 
bright crystalline mass. 

The Penfield or Crown Point black magnetic ore bed in 

Essex county New York is 40 feet wide, in northeast striking 
gneiss (the middle is rich and pure, 7 growing lean with quartz to¬ 
wards the walls) for twenty rods as seen in 1840. At one point 
this great bed is 160 feet wide, a triangular mass of lean ore, 
the irregularity being in the roof-rock, the bottom being nearly 
horizontal. It is worked in an open quarry. The ore is free of 
sulphur and works beautifully in the forge. An extension per¬ 
haps of this bed quite similar to it has been opened half a mile 
south of it and another large vein of similar ore a mile north¬ 
west of it. 

The Schroon beds lie west of the last described ; one on the 
west side of Paradox lake, seven feet wide, very pure, very 
coarse and quartzose. Another on the other shore IS inches 
wide dips into the mountain, like a trap dyke, a pure mass of 
magnetic oxide without admixture of earthy matter. In War- 
ren county Hague township, in the Brant lake region, there is a 
north and south vein two feet wide, highly magnetic, fine 
grained, pure, dipping east, in hornb lende. Three miles north 

6 Dr. Emmons gives figures (No. 21, No. 22) of the Adirondack mine on page 89 of 

part iv. Nat. Hist, of N. York. « New York Report, part iv., p. 242. 

7 Mag. oxide 92.97. silica alumina 5.93.— Dr. Beck. 


388 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


of the lake, in Desolate, is a 10 feet vein line grained and 
mixed with a little pyrites. 8 

The abandoned Saxe ore bed near the village of Crown 
Point, shows peroxide in the form of magnetic crystals, and is ir¬ 
regularly disseminated through the hornblendic gneiss. Its very 
color has changed to the reddish-brown limonite hue. lied ore is 
obtained at several other points near Crown Point and Ticon- 
deroga to a small extent; in insulated masses, with gneiss 
and limestone at Shelving Pock, “four or live inches across, 
penetrating the strata perpendicularly for two feet and then dis¬ 
appearing.” A large regular vein was opened four miles north¬ 
west of Port Henry, looking on the surface like a ferruginous trap. 

The Walton or Old Crown Point Vein, two miles from 
Cedar Point has been open for seventy years ; in 1840 it was 
11 feet wide, and worked 30 feet deep and half a mile long ; it 
dips 31° west conformably in gneiss ; is black and friable, and 
makes tough iron. The joint of ore and gneiss is perfectly dis¬ 
tinct. 9 

Half a mile below Port Henry the Cragharbour vein 12 

feet wide (in 1840) dips 30° west under Hornblende Pock; 
black, tough, very magnetic, with feeble polarity; iron pyrites 
in thin seams but not disseminated; specific gravity 4.729; 
analysis, peroxide 64.80, 1 protoxide 24.50, silica, alumina, etc. 
8.70, (Iron 65.23.) It is traceable for half a mile along the lake. 2 
Hornblende is a constant impurity in this ore and is suspected 
of making it hard and brittle by Dr. Beck. N. Y. P. p. 14. 

The two Che ever veins two miles north of Port Henry and 
a quarter of a mile back from the shore of Lake Champlain, are 
one 6 and the other 10 feet thick, dipping 30° or 40° away from 
the lake, and yielding a coarse but very pure magnetic oxide 
ore. A tunnel has been driven in from the lake shore to drain 
and work the beds. 3 Its associated minerals are hornblende, a 
little feldspar and salilite or hyperstliene. 4 

The two Sandford beds are four miles west of Port Henry, 
in the side of a hill a thousand feet above the lake. In 1857 
the main excavation was 100 by 300 feet square and nearly 100 
feet deep. The ore 60 feet thick plunged under a stratum of 

8 Emmons’s New York Report, p. 234. / 9 Emmons, p. 237. 

1 66.80 in Dr. Beck’s Report. 3 Emmons’s Report, p. 236; see Beck’s Report of 

1837, p. 25. 3 Whitney, p. 466 4 Dr. Beck, Report, p. 15. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


389 


altered sand-rock 30 feet tliick < 20°SW. 


N. New York. 


At the end the ore terminates against a 
blank vertical wall, over which it is heaved, and settles in a thin 
layer (of 5 or 10 feet) at a gentle dip northwestward. At the 
southeast end there is no visible termination or diminution of 
the immense mass, which seems also to pass regularly down its 
dip as far as followed, under great arcades about as large as and 
more imposing than those supporting the Receiving Reservoir 
below the Boston State House. The other bed undoubtedly 
overlies the one just described about 100 feet (sand-rock be¬ 
tween) and is itself irregularly 50 feet thick, dipping in the same 
direction down the little stream which drains its quarry. A 
gravity railroad is projected to Port Henry. This deposit is 
famous for its mixture with phosphate of lime, from the dissemi¬ 
nated grains of which it receives a rich ruby tint. Expensive 
works were once put up to manufacture this manure to the ne¬ 
glect of the iron ore, and they have not been abandoned ; but 
the mining of the ore has gone on rapidly increasing, and now 
it is sent to all the furnaces along the Hudson and to the fur¬ 


naces and rolling mills of Ohio and western Pennsylvania, to 
mix with local ores and to line puddling furnaces. It is not 
adapted for the bloomary. 6 

The Old Barnum vein, half a mile west of the (Port Henry) 
Sandford vein was 7 feet thick in 1810, dipping 30° west, con¬ 
formably, in hornblendic gneiss ; black, soft, friable, pure. 6 

The Hall vein is a mile north of the Barnum, quartzose, dull 
black, 5 feet wide and dips 20° west not 7 conformably with the 
gneiss rocks, the walls showing slickensides. Masses of rock 
project across the vein as in coal mines where this effect is pro¬ 
duced by pressure, and its appearance here argues for a soft 
condition of the ore at one time. 8 In one place a distinct anti- 


8 In the Sandford magnetic ore bed of Essex county, Mr. Wm. P. Blake has found the 
rare mineral carbonate of lanthanum, once found at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, con¬ 
nected with the ores of zinc. Here it occux-s in fissures of the magnetic ore mass, which 
is mixed up with reddish brown crystals of phosphate of lime (apatite), forming some¬ 
times regular beds within the mass of ore itself, and apparently in greater abundance 
towards the top. Uncommonly large crystals of allanite are left sticking in the dark 
red feldspar granite wall of the mine when the ore is removed. Mr. Blake thinks the 
lanthanite here produced by slow decomposition of the allanite, and at Bethlehem by 
the decomposition of an isolated boulder of allanite.— Silhman's Jour. Art. xxxii., vol. 
xxvi., No. 77, Sep. 1950. 7 Dr. Emmons’s figure on p. 239 is very curious. 

8 Emmons, p. 238. 8 Are figured by Dr. Emmons, fig. 63, p. 240. 


390 


PART II-DIVISION II. 


clinal fold of ore and gneiss rock is exhibited. I lie Hall ore re¬ 
sembles the Penfield, and makes excellent iron. The Everest vein 
thirty or forty rods from the Hall vein and very dissimilar from 
it, although of the same size and dip, may be a different vein. Dr. 
Emmons could not determine the point to his own satisfaction. 
The principal accompaniment of this ore is quartz, veins of 
which traverse it. Reddish feldspar of some beauty occurs also, 
and specimens of pyroxene, hornblende and crystals of phos¬ 
phate of lime. In one of the veins of white quartz are brown 
zircons. A vein of pulverulent black matter (peroxide of iron ?) 
traverses it. 1 

The Everest Mines and the Everest and Green mines are 
deposits of magnetic ore, showing the black magnetic ore un¬ 
changed in parts and in other parts changing or changed into 
red or specular iron ore. 2 

The Adirondac Sanford bed on Sanford Lake in Warren 
"county and on the Adirondac river fifty miles from water navi¬ 
gation in the wilderness north of Saratoga was discovered by an 
Indian who revealed the fact to David Henderson of Jersey City 
in 1826 while standing on the wharf at the Elba works.® It is 
a magnetic ore bed called by Dr. Emmons 700 to 800 feet 
thick,* but so described by him and others as facing the moun¬ 
tain side, descending with the slojje.and “disappearing beneath 
the rock,” that this measurement must of course be taken for the 
breadth of its side exposure ; its thickness is entirely unknown 
and may not exceed 50 feet. It is a true rock deposit with a 
jointed structure cutting it up into large tabular masses, and its 
prolongation as a bed may be detected for several miles. Other 
beds occur in the neighborhood which may in the end prove to 
be upthrows or counter dips of this one. The ore is unequally 
oxidized and somewhat difficult of reduction. Two furnaces 
and very considerable works in the vicinity have as yet done 
nothing. The vein seems to appear again a mile and a half dis¬ 
tant, 15 feet thick for 32 rods upon the surface, with all the 
characteristic features of the great bed. 6 It appears again on 

9 The Sandford beds are distinct, and these two Hall and Everest beds may be those. 

1 Dr. Beck, Report, p. 16. 

2 Dr. Beck, Report, p. 16. 

3 See Bulletin Am. Iron Ass. note 626, p. 165. 

4 Emmons’s N. Y. Nat. Hist, part iv. p. 244; imer. Geol. p. 93. 

5 Report of Adiron. Iron and Steel Co. 1854. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


391 


the opposite shore in the direction of Hill’s _ 

• i i J^i ■ IN i OX*K!a 

island, disappearing under the water. 

The Coarse Grained black vein near the Adirondac works 
(in fact they are founded on the ore), is harder and more tena¬ 
cious than the Sanford bed, and intermixed with hypersthene, 
labradorite, small masses of dark serpentine and here and there 
a nut of pyrites. The excavations cover ground TOO feet east 
and west by 3,168 feet (in 1840) north and south, the direction 
of the strike. As in the Sanford bed it is seen passing beneath 
rocks [and the whole may be considered a horizontal plate 
covered with patches of remaining rock]. Where wrought it 
shows 36 feet of pure solid ore unmixed with rock. 

The Fine Grained vein is excavated 80 rods east of the 
works on a steep ridge and running northwest for 5,742 feet (in 
1840) and very uniformly 150 feet in breadth [not in thickness 
but along the bevelled edge]. It is granular, buck-shot size or 
finer, firm, dull black and rich. Here and there is seen dissemi¬ 
nated pyrites. 6 

Other veins are mentioned; one west of Lake Henderson, 
nearly a mile from the works, a beautiful fine-grained ore; 
another west of Lake Sanford, and a third east of the Sanford 
hill. These may be all parts of the same beds with those de¬ 
scribed. 

Large masses of ore are seen on the East river waters brought 
down by ice. The Cheney ore bed west of Lake Sanford was 
discovered about 1841. 

In Saratoga and Washington counties magnetic ore is 
common (as an injected mass Prof. Mather thinks) u spreading 
between strata of gneiss and communicating with larger 
masses like the trapean rocks.” Darkbrown garnet, colophonite 
and coccolite are sometimes very abundant and even form by 
far the largest portion of the ore bed and frequently resemble 
the ore so closely that ordinary observers do not distinguish the 
true ore from these intermingled materials ; as at the mine on 
top of the mountain four miles north of Fort Ann, where granu¬ 
lar ore, granular black garnet, granular and crystalline horn¬ 
blende are plenty and quartz in irregular roundish masses which 
“ seems to have been softened by heat to assume the forms 
observed.” The whole extensive ore bed would yield iron, but 

4 Emmons’s N. Y. Report, p. 254. 


>392 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


is lean until picked. Several other beds in the same town near 
Mount Hope Furnace yield magnetic and sometimes polar ore 
sometimes pure, sometimes disseminated in gneiss, sometimes 
mixed with garnet, coccolite, hornblende, sometimes with lime¬ 
stone. Three beds southwest of the furnace send their ore on 
pond ice in winter to the furnace, which was the only high 
furnace in Washington county in 1842, but several forges on 
West Wood creek made anchors, etc. from pig or from Essex 
ore. Good ore is reported near Comstock’s landing ; north 
of Dake’s corners Fort Ann ; in Dresden south of Putnam’s 
ferry; and a large body exists in the South Sacondaga mountain 
2 miles south of Hadley’s falls, examined and described by 
Mr. Seymour who reports 10 to 15 veins some of them 5 to 8 
feet wide ; the Porter vein he says becomes wider downwards 
and less mixed with its feldspar gangue, making a tough soft 
iron ; it is nearly vertical and ranges due north while the 
strata dip 30° north-northwest and range east-northeast; the ore 
magnetic, 30 to 50 per cent iron ; is owned by Mitchell, the 
Jefferses and Fay. 7 This description if correct looks more like 
ejection or igneous origin than anything we have. Just north 
of Jessup’s landing, half a mile west of the Hudson, magnetic 
ore was discovered in 1826, and opened 20 feet deep and traced 
more than a mile in 1842. It is like the Duane ore, hard and 
tough, and makes a steely iron. 8 See page 397. 

In Westport Essex county six miles west of the village on 
lot 177 a north and south vein of black magnetic ore 40 feet 
thick in granite, tough, rich and pure. Two other veins are 
known on lots 140, 141. An inferior vein has been opened 2 
miles further north. Another 2 feet wide runs in hornblende 
rock northeast through lot Ho. 23, compact, tough. There are 
several others in Keene that do not promise much. 9 

Of the four Arnold veins in Clinton county the Old Blue 
vein yields from 2 to 8 feet of remarkably pure magnetic oxide 
(with a little silica) and was worked in 1842 260 feet deep and 
1,300 feet along. All four veins lie parallel and have been 
heaved simultaneously by oblique trap-dykes, but not by the 
dykes which cross at right angles ; 1 good evidence that the shift 
was due to a longitudinal horizontal strain and not to any eartli- 

7 Mather R. p, 576. 

8 Dr. Beck’s Report, p. 12. 


9 Emmons, p. 244. 

1 Emmons, iv. p. 292. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


393 


quake or cataclysmic action. The veins dip „ _ __ _ 

70° WISTW, and probably extend beyond where ' 6W 01 

ore of the same sort has been found half a mile along the strike. 

The four beds are only separated from each other by a few 
feet of rock, the black bed being from 3 to 11 feet and the grey 
beds from 2 to 8 feet thick, the ore being the same in all, and 
the whole four may represent a quadruple coal bed or any 
other intermitted sedimentary deposit. The blue vein is at once 
distinguishable from the other three by its tint, and its iridescent 
and purple hues. Its streak is red, while that of the rock bed is 
brown. These are instances of the different degrees of oxida¬ 
tion either in the original deposit or in the beds subsequent to 
their present elevation. The other two beds are made grey by 
a grey quartz intermixture, but give a red streak and are brown 
on their weathered surfaces. All four beds being pure perox¬ 
ides, yield a tough soft iron. 5 This ore Dr. Beck pronounces 
one of the purest and best known, and gives three analyses of 
• three of the veins, as follows : 

Black vein protox. 27.00 perox. 71.50, quartz 1.50; 

Light blue vein (lime traces) perox. 98.00, silica 2.33; 

Greyish vein, (mang. and lime) perox. 97.00, insol. 2.83. 

Dr. Emmons discusses at great length the causes of the easy 
flexibility of this ore andMr. Clay’s process of doing it. 3 

The Finch vein is a continuation of the Arnold, and gives 
grey and black ores. 

The Palmer veins three miles west of the Finch, were not 
opened as to the principal 35 foot vein until 1839. They resem¬ 
ble the Arnold veins, but run in more crystalline rocks, with 
large masses of feldspar and quartz, and a little mica dissemi¬ 
nated. 4 Dr. Emmons calls it a bunch of magnetic ore 35 feet wide, 
without distinct walls, gradually passing into altered sandstone 
at the edges and much mixed up with sand (quartz) through¬ 
out, requiring washing. 5 The ore is black magnetic and is not 
only washed but separated by magnets for furnace use. The 
history of the working is curious. For a long time a great dyke 
hid the main deposit from the levels which were taking out a 
lean rock ore, got between smaller dykes. On the point of 
abandoning these uncertain workings the owners determined to 


3 Emmons’s Report. 

8 Pages 293 to 299; see hereafter. 


4 Dr. Beck. 

6 Report, page 299. 


394 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


at least cut through the main dyke (14 feet thick) and on doing 
so broke into the solid ore, which did not show itself on the sur¬ 
face and could not have been in the least suspected to exist at 
this trifling depth (see Dr. Emmons’s diagrams). The dissemina¬ 
tion of the ore through the barren ground is a flne illustration 
of the chemico-sedimentary origin of such veins even when in 
the presence of their so-called generators the igneous dykes. 
If the great dyke here generated the great ore bed at one point 
it would have at another; if on one side it would on the other. 

The Cook veins traverse a hill three miles northwest from 
Clintonville, a 2 foot and a 13 foot bed, parallel and four feet 
apart; three other veins also parallel 6, 3 and 2 feet wide ; ore 
black, granular and soft, or compact and firm; strongly at¬ 
tracted and polar; gangue quartz, black mica and hornblende, 
intimately mixed with the ore which is separated by magnets, 
and yields good iron. 6 The 14 foot bed was discovered by Mr. 
Cook (when the Pennsylvania Company abandoned their verti¬ 
cal 2 foot bed at a depth of 50 feet) driving across the measures. 
Only 5 feet of wall separated the workings from this magnifi¬ 
cent treasure for many years! The four veins with an aggre¬ 
gate width of 24 feet, can be worked together. The large vein 
forms the backbone and crest of ridge and can be traced for a 
mile and a half north and south. It is a rich vein at the surface, 
and Dr. Emmons says the veins improved downward both in 
width and freedom from quartz. “ The arrangement of the ore 
and earthy matter is mostly in vertical parallel bands or stripes.” 

The Stone mine is at the north end of the Cook vein outcrop. 
In describing this ore Dr. Emmons notices the fact that pieces 
of it raised from a depth of 25 or 30 feet showing neither po¬ 
larity nor magnetism acquire it afterwards strongly by exposure 
to light and air. These veins are traversed by various dykes 
apparently parallel H. 50° East. 7 

The Battie vein 8 is also a part of the Cook, distant one and 
a half mile and connected by an outcrop. The southern open¬ 
ing and eastern wall ore is largely mixed with pyrites. Twenty 
rods further north the vein w T as reopened 14 feet wide, mixed 
with flint, hornblende and black mica, with thick, solid wedges 
of non-pyritous ore. The four or five Cook veins are here only 


6 Dr. Beck, p, 19. 


7 Emmons, p. 302. 


8 Printed Baltic in Beck’s Report. 


THE I KIMARY IRON ORES. 


395 


two, dipping very steeply to the eastward, j^ ew y or ]j 
almost vertical, and fifteen rods further west 
is a third vein 5 or 6 feet wide, with a gangue of pure white flint 
with one-third its hulk of black ore. 9 

The Rutger vein, eight miles w r est of Clintonville is 10 feet 
wide, parallel to the Cook and Arnold, and occupies like many 
others the crest of a primary ridge; is lean at the surface, with 
a very peculiar gangue, “ like phosphate of lime,” but undes¬ 
cribed by either Dr. Emmons or Dr. Beck. Its ore had been 
abandoned in 1810. 

The Winter vein is drawn on Emmons’s Section, page 306, 
as occupying a fourth or westernmost ridge, next west of the 
Cook, and described as a horizontal outflow of lava-like metal 
forty feet in one direction by one hundred in another, unequally 
distributed, but nowhere more than 2 feet deep as pure ore. But 
in fact this bed differs from others in no respect except in its 
nearly horizontal posture, and in this it resembles the Sanford 
beds at Port Henry and at Adirondack. “ It presents the same 
general arrangement as all other veins, that of parallel bands or 
stripes.” Its dip is actually west and it is traversed by at least 
nine dykes of various width but all parallel to one another 
within the hundred feet. The rock on which this ore-floor rests 
has ore disseminated through it. 

The Mace vein, 4 feet wide, dipping west, traceable 30 
rods, rich, but flinty, was lately discovered (in 1842) two miles 
east of Clintonville. 

The Burt vein, 8 feet wide, striking east and w r est, is tough, 
granular, pyritous, feldspathic, the ore distributed in masses of 


several pound’s weight. 

The Jackson vein was considered by Emmons a continua¬ 
tion of the Arnold, like the Finch. 

The McIntyre vein is different from the Palmer although 
in the same hill, but on its south face and striking northwest. 
Its width varies from 6 to 10 feet. It is non-pyritous, associated 
with black mica, hornblende and quartz and promised to be a 
large and valuable bed in 1842. 1 

The Skinner vein, 20 miles west of Plattsburg and 7 north¬ 
west of Cadyville, an important vein, cutting very coarse red 


9 Emmons, p. 303. 


1 Emmons’s Rep. p. 307. 


396 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


granite, black, quite pure inside, outside mixed with decomposed 
feldspar, is coarse and easily 2 )re P arec ^ f° r ^ ie furnace, slightly 
magnetic and of a dull lustre. It is mixed with hornblende 
and a little phosphate of lime (?) but makes a tough iron. 2 

The Sailly and Averil vein, situated about three miles 
north of the Saranac river in the forest, yields a valuable, fine¬ 
grained, bright, somewhat sulphurous (and pyroxenic?) ore, 
breaking into angular masses and containing one-third earthy 
matter, lies in coarse red granite in which large crystalline 
masses of felds])ar are common. It may be a continuation of 
the Skinner Vein. 2 

In Franklin County the magnetic veins are not so numerous, 
probably because the primary mountains around Mount Seward 
form an uninterrupted belt 50 miles wide against which the 
palaeozoic rocks lie in a belt only 10 miles wide from north to 
south. It is a country of mountain lakes and rocks of the 
Huronian and Laurentian system far too 1ow t for the ore deposits 
which occur not far beneath the Potsdam sandstone. 

The Miller vein, in a hill in Franklin township near the 
falls of the Saranac, is the southernmost known to Dr. Emmons ; 
line-grained, pure and rich. A similar vein was found on Chub 
river. A vein of black ore was reported at Tupper’s lake. 

The Conger veins, near the Port Kent and Hopkinton road 
in T. Ko. 11, is a group of coarse-grained, black, bright ore-beds 
intermixed with decomposed feldspar and white flint, in gneiss 
(with hornblende and black mica). Four or five miles distant 
others were discovered. 

The Deer River vein, near Duane and three miles from the 
Deer River Furnace, is 20 feet wide, with regular walls, well 
defined, strike east-northeast, traceable as a great bed 80 rods, 
ore mostly protoxide, strongly magnetic, sometimes polar, lustre 
resinous, shining and also dull, fracture angular, along cleavage 
joints coated with green earth and yellow oxide, ore mixed with 
hypersthene, vein traversed lengthwise by seams of light colored 
feldspar, hornblendic, gangue principally coarse hornblende with 
large garnets and some black mica, iron made soft and tough 
for castings. 3 

Another wide vein of magnetic oxide has been opened on a 
high hill by James Duane. 4 

2 Emmons, pp. 307, 308. 3 Emmons, p. 328. * Emmons, p. 328. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


397 


The steel ore bed, four miles east of Duane __ __ , 

Furnace on a steep hill 500 feet high, dips east, ' e W ° r 

is from 1 to 8 feet wide disturbed by trap dykes, walls broken, 
gangue hornblende with quartz and feldspar, ore coarse and 
fine with more hypersthene than the Deer river ore (the hyper- 
stliene looks like bronze), sometimes iridescent, a very little 
pyritous, with small masses of feldspar and garnets, fracture 
angular. The Franklin ores Dr. Emmons thinks to differ from 
the Essex and Clinton in being so liornblendic. 5 This ore al¬ 
though called locally a steel ore is a common magnetic oxide, 
but makes a fine grained pot metal of more than ordinary 
strength on account of the mixture of bar iron made out of the 


peroxide while the protoxide part of the ore becomes a kind of 
steel. Hematite ores, such as Scotch pig is made of, produce a 
homogeneous and therefore brittle cast iron. Duane ore, cast 
into chisels, plane irons, knives, etc. and tempered in oil, makes 
a useful metal but not to be depended on like well made steel. 
The proper treatment of mixed ores like the magnetic is to 
stamp and separate the magnetic grains by magnets before 
forging. 8 

The Malone veins, four miles west of Malone, run in parallel 
lines obliquely across the axis of a granitoid ridge, and more 
westerly than common, through a decomposed rock. They were 
abandoned before 1842 and are the most' northerly of all the 


primary magnetic veins. 

In St. Lawrence County the magnetic ores scarcely 
appear. At Pierrepont a bed has been wrought and ore found 
at Canton. In this county the primary ores are almost all specu¬ 
lar or peroxide. 

The Parish mine in Gouverneur is almost pure peroxide, 
containing only 2 or 3 per cent of sand. Beck describes it as a 


a Pyroxene and hornblende sometimes contain a very large percentage of iron in both 
its forms of pro- and sesqui-oxide. See the list of analyses in Amer. Journ. 1858, p. 353, 
one of which (10b.) reads: Si 40.00 Pe 10.45 Fe 13.38 Oa 11.28 Mg. 7.51 2tl 7.37 
Na + K 5.25 Mn 1.85 FI 1.07 ign. 0.54 = 98.70. The new conclusion (mineralogi- 
cally considered) to which Rammelsburg arrives is the common bisilicate structure, or 
oxygen ratio (1: 2) between the bases and silica, of the hornblendes and pyroxene.* 
The quantities of iron vary extremely in these rocks, and is quite sufficient to account 
for the segregation of vast beds of ore. 

« Emmons, p. 330. Dr. Beck gives T. B. Clemson’s analysis as follows: Iron and 
scoria 15.42, Iron alone 12.90, Part possessing the properties of steel 64.50.—Rep. p. 20. 


* Dana, Amer. Jour. 1858, p. 853. 



398 


PART IT.-DIVISfON II. 


flat bed beneath the Potsdam (and therefore nearly in the 
same geological position with the magnetic ore of Cornwall and 
Warwick and the brown hematite ore of Chestnut Hill in East¬ 
ern Pennsylvania), but Emmons sees in it an eruption pitching 
the sandstone both ways. 7 Venuxem (to whose genius we are 
indebted for so many fine truths in American geology, and 
among others for the first correlation of the New Jersey green 
sand with the corresponding cretaceous rocks of Europe) saw the 
impossibility of this and suggested a chemico-sedimentary ex¬ 
planation of the striking difference between these specular ores 
and the magnetic ores of the neighboring counties. lie makes 
the specular ores local deposits of peroxide of iron (bog ore) on 
the primary surface subsequent to its elevation and denudation 
and just before or during the first deposits of the Potsdam sand¬ 
stone ; and in connection with the chemical precipitation of 
limestone. He says, “ it seems to have separated from the lime¬ 
stone by crystalline action, like gypsum and other minerals, 
being frequently enveloped in limestone. Where found it is 
but a superficial mass; and though its matrix is mixed with 
primary rock the origin of the two was subsequent to that rock, 
appearing to have been local deposits of calcareous marl and 
oxide of iron similar to those met with in the gypseous region ; 
the marl and oxide separating from each other by crystallization, 
being placed in a position which facts elsewhere prove was 
highly favorable to this operation.” “At Lewisburg the same 
limestone and specular ore, the supposed associates of the pri¬ 
mary rocks, intermixed with red ore, prove a connection with 
the Potsdam, as intimate, if not more so, than could be dis¬ 
covered for the primary mass.” 8 

Dr. Emmons was disturbed by this opinion because, as he 
said, “admitting the theory, we may just as well admit that all 
the beds of primary limestone and veins also were deposits in 
the form of marl or tufa, for they are all alike,” an admission 
which he has refused to make down to the present time. He 
also asserts in his Peport that “ most of the beds of specular 
oxide, as the Tate and Polley beds or veins, are wholly discon¬ 
nected with this rock; they are contained in gneiss; they are 
wholly mined in gneiss and are not taken off from the primary 


7 Whitney, M. W. 


Geol. III. Dis. p. 2G7. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


399 


surface as though they were deposited upon it.” __ T _ __ , 

But the fact is that the gneiss is hut a pre- ’ eW ° r 
viously deposited part of the Potsdam sandstone, or that first and 
opening formation of the Palaeozoic system, or which is the same 
thing one of the later deposits of the immediately preceding Huro- 
nian or Azoic system. It is not certain that Vanuxem thought of 
bog ore deposits, nor of the primary floor in any other sense than 
the last receiving bed prepared for the Potsdam sandstone. 

Many of the Parish and Kearny beds are in the form of 
red stony matter (says Emmons) passing into powder and very 
unlike crystalline specular ore, being large masses descending 
into the primary rocks. [They are probably like the brown 
hematite masses which descend into the Lower Silurian rocks, 
and were so conceived of by Vanuxem.] “I was unable to find 
lateral walls or the precise extent of the masses on either hand.” 
The southern angle of the Parish mine rested on serpentine and 
serpentine is often seen in the midst of the ore, [a sufficient 
proof that both were imbedded, and that the ore is a decompo¬ 
sition from the gangue rock that held them in common, or rather 
the iron from the decomposed part of the serpentine mass. 9 ] 

“ In most of these beds of specular ore we find large masses 
of the primary rocks, mostly of a silicious kind. Besides these 
subordinate veins and masses of the carbonate of iron, fine 
geodes of quartz crystals are not uncommon. Sulphuret of iron 
both in a state of proto-sulphuret and persulphuret occurs in 
most localities ; the former disseminated, decomposing and pass¬ 
ing into sulphate of iron; the latter in crystals and more perma¬ 
nent in its form.” “ Besides the powdery and massive forms of 
the ore, it is often in fine lenticular crystals or fine brilliant 
scales, the micaceous oxide , resembling graphite,” “ also in mam¬ 
millary and tuberose forms as in the hematitic beds.” 1 

The Kearney bed of specular red oxide lies about 40 rods 
northwest of the Parish bed and is evidently a continuation of 
it, the Potsdam sandstone dipping south of the one and north of 
the other, the serpentine or ore between, upon the anticlinal, 
but “ no igneous rocks as trap or greenstone seen in the 
vicinity.” 2 The specimens from the Parish and Kearney beds 


9 A slaty serpentine and a fibrous serpentine ( Metaxite ) from Tyrol gave v. Gilm 
Fe 5.71 and 5.98 in its silicate of magnesia mass.—T. Hunt in Amer. Jour. 1858, pp. 358 
and 234. 1 Emmons, p. 345. 3 Emmons’s Report, New York, p. 93. 


400 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


are slaty like the micaceous ore; hard and compact; jaspery 
and semicrystalline, etc. Associated with the ore are crystals 
of brown spar, carbonate of iron, calc spar (dodecahedral crys¬ 
tals) rarely sulphate of barytes. The most abundant ore is dull 
brown red, compact, earthy, peroxide iron 96.52, silica, alumina, 
etc. 3.40, and when selected yields 50 per cent pig iron. 3 

The Edwards’ specular ore mass in primary limestone 
seemed a north and south vein 3 or 4 feet wide, but it soon 
narrowed and disappeared over serpentine and a yellowish lean 
carbonate of iron. A tunnel crosscut discovered nothing but a 
few sporadic masses. Dr. Emmons compares the Troy mine in 
Vermont of magnetic ore in serpentine, ten feet w T ide at the 
surface and running out like this. 

The Tate and Polley specular veins are near each other 
but disconnected, on two opposite sides of a gneiss hill, and dip 
70° northwest. The Tate ore is bright red resembling the 
Parish. The Polley ore is quartzose and leaner. ~No Potsdam 
or any other [unchanged] sedimentary rocks are near. 4 

Another specular oxide vein is opened three miles west of 
Dekalb village, in gneiss and not near Potsdam sandstone. 5 

The Theresa specular red oxide beds “ are arranged in 
indistinct layers in the Potsdam sandstone; these layers appear¬ 
ing to have been originally this sandstone only, but subse¬ 
quently filled or saturated with the oxide of iron, some of which 
if found in any other place, as in boulders, would have passed 
for quartz highly charged with iron.” 6 

The Fowler specular lean ore “ is a red rock apparently 
stratified, lying between layers of gneiss, over which the sand¬ 
stone (Potsdam) partially projects. The mass of ore is not there¬ 
fore interposed simply between the sandstone and the gneiss.” 7 

The charcoal furnaces of New York that use magnetic ore are Mount Hope 
(K 627) in Washington county; Crown Point (K 628) in Essex, and Danemora 
(K 629) in Clinton county. 

Those that use the red oxide are Rossie and Fullerville (K 631, 634) in St. Law¬ 
rence ; Redwood, Wegatchie, Sterlingburg and Sterlingville (K 632, 633, 636, 637) 
in Jefferson; Sterlingbush and Alpina (K 636, 638) in Lewis county. 

Those that use the fossil red oxide of the Upper Silurian formation are the 
seven in Oneida, Oswego, Chenango and Wayne counties and need not be here 
specified. 

s Beck, p. 25. 4 Emmons’s Rep. p. 347. 6 Emmons’s Rep. p. 347. 

6 Emmons’s Nat. Hist. N. York, part iv. p. 94. 7 Emmons, fig. 28, p. 95. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


401 


The bloomaries of the Champlain district, viz. two in York. 

Washington, sixteen in Essex and eighteen in Clinton, use 
magnetic ore like,the furnaces of that region. 

The two bloomaries of St. Lawrence county use a lean bog ore near Brasher s 
falls; the six remaining forges of the St. Lawrence district, having no magnetic ore, 
and not being able to work up the red oxide, mix furnace pig and scrap iron. 

The mines of magnetic ore in Moriah, Washington county, supply the West Fort 
Ann bloomaries and Mount Hope furnace which gets half its stock from the Cheever 
(53 per cent) and half from its own neighborhood. 

The Penfield bed (55 per cent ore) five miles west of Penfield forge in Essex 
county, supplies that and Schroon forge and Crown Point furnace; Schroon forge is 
also supplied from a 85 per cent magnetic ore bed in the northeast corner of the 
township, seven miles olf (4 tons ore to 1 ton metal), costing at the forge $5.25. 
Two other bloomaries are on Schroon river, North Hudson and Deadwater.—Noble’s 
forge at the outlet of Black Pond uses half Sandford half Haasz’s ore (4 miles south¬ 
west). New Russia forge uses half Barton ore from Moriah township, and half from 
a bed two miles west; and three other bloomaries on the Bouquet river, Elizabeth¬ 
town, Westport and Whallonsburg, do the same. Wilder’s and Merriam’s forges on 
the north branch of Bouquet river, use the North American company’s magnetic ore 
from Moriah, 50 per cent, $7 washed and delivered. Willsborough forge on Bouquet 
river two miles w T est of the Lake uses Barton ore, alone, brought from Moriah, 
3 tons of which makes 2 washed and 1 iron. Highland forge at the outlet of Warm 
Pond one mile west of the lake uses Goff’s magnetic ore from Moriah. Purmort’s 
forge on South Ausable uses Arnold’s magnetic ore in Ausable township, 4 tons of 
which (washed 2) produce 1 of iron. Ausable forge on the west branch as well as 
the Upper and Lower Blackbrook forges in Clinton county use Palmer’s magnetic ore 
in Blackbrook township, two miles from Ausable village, 4 tons = 2 separated = 1 iron. 

In Clinton county besides the two just mentioned, the New Sweden forge in the 
North Ausable mixes Jackson’s and Nelson’s ores, 3 miles distant, and so do the two 
Clintonville village forges, two miles on the same stream. Cook’s forge in Cook- 
sackie is stopped. Honsinger’s in Peaseville uses Tremble’s magnetic ore from Sar¬ 
anac river. The two Norrisville forges 2| miles west of Schuyler’s falls of Salmon 
river use Goff’s and American company’s ores from Moriah. Merchant’s is also on 
Salmon. Myers’ forge on west branch south Saranac has its own magnetic ore 
directly opposite, lean but good, 6 tons = 2£ separated, making one ton of iron of 
the best quality, used for wire, axles, etc. The Russia forges on Saranac also use 
Tremble’s ore, 3 miles southwest opposite Redford, and mix some Amer. Co. Moriah 
ore. Platt’s forge in Saranac village mixes with Tremble’s and A. C. ore also Sher¬ 
man’s and Goff’s, of which 2 tons washed make one of iron, 300 bushels charcoal to 
a ton of metal. Elsinore forge on the north bank of the Saranac mixes Amer. Co. 
and Sherman ores. The Danemora forge has its own 60 per cent magnetic ore bed 
in the inclosure of the state prison, with the furnace. Stone forge, on the south 
bank below' Cadyville uses the same ore. Weston forge in Plattsburg brings its ore 
from Moriah.* 


In Putnam, Orange and Westchester counties New 

York, the metamorphic rocks contain numerous deposits of mag- 

* J. Lesley, jun. in the Bulletin of the Amer. Iron Assoc. Phila. May 1, 1858. 

26 




402 


PART n. -DIVISION II. 


netic ore which were examined and reported upon during the pro¬ 
gress of the State Geological Survey by Prof. Mather and also 
by Prof. Beck, who thought them as extensive perhaps as any in 
the world, yet as late as 1849 but two blast furnaces used 
them in making iron. Surrounded as they are by mountains 
covered with timber (although at a distance from mineral coal 
regions), and so near the actual commercial metropolis of Ame¬ 
rica, there can be no explanation offered for this apparent lack 
of energy applied to a great national necessity, but the perpe¬ 
tual malignant and omnipotent counteracting vigilance of a 
foreign interest unrestrained by any wise, self-protecting policy 
at home ; an interest which has stationed its police upon the 
New York wharves, and as it were its spies at the mouth of 
every ore-drift and tunnel head. Establish some shore defences 
against the sudden and skillful blows of this foe, and Whit¬ 
ney well says, 8 “ It is difficult to see what drawback there can 
be to the future prosperity of this region, situated as it is.” 

The following mines in the Hew York Highlands, east and 
west of the Hudson river, are described by Prof. Mather in his 
Report of 1842, from page 559 to 576. Magnetic ore is the only 
ore of any economical importance and is confined to the High¬ 
lands, and abounds in Putnam county. Lead, silver, tin and 
copper pyrites, and carbonate of copper occur in insignificant 
quantities in the same rocks, and beds of pyrites with gypsum 
and sulphate of alum. 9 The magnetic iron-ore masses are beds 
in pure or in homblendic gneiss, which on careful investigation 
Prof. Mather felt himself constrained to consider true veins, 
although their course is parallel with the strike and the dip of 
the rocks, for by close examination he thought he found out that 
at certain distances they broke from this order and crossed the 
strata, to resume a parallel plane again beyond. “ At some places 
where a great bed of ore occurs at some depth, only a few small 
stripes of ore penetrate through the superincumbent mass to the 
surface, as if the rocks had been cracked asunder and these small 
seams of ore had been forced up from the main mass below. The 
beds of magnetic ore lie either vertical or dipping to the south¬ 
east at an angle corresponding to the dip of the strata. One 
example only was observed where the dip was to the west- 


* Whitney, p. 465. 


8 Described in his report, pp. 114, 119. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


403 


northwest, viz., at the Stewart mine. The ^ ^ _ 

. 11 . r+ t .. . S. New York. 

ore is very variable m quality, in some it is 

nearly pure, in others intermixed more or less with the mate¬ 
rials of the contiguous rocks, in others mingled with pyrites 
and some other minerals.” 

On Breakneck Mountain in Putnam county east of the Hud¬ 
son, several tons had been mined from an unexplored vein. 

On Constitution Island opposite West Point foundry a bed 
was opened at the northeast end and another in the centre, the 
ore disseminated through gneiss. 

East of West Point a mile and a quarter, magnetic ore is 
disseminated through limestone for three miles northeastward 
to within half a mile of the Cotton rock. 

Northeast of Anthony’s Nose (a bold promontory on the 
Hudson) a mile, at the “old silver mine” a mile southeast of Con- 
shook island, magnetic ore with augite and limestone occurs in 
“ granite.” On the Nose itself a bed of it was opened many 
years ago but abandoned on account of pyrites and phosphate 
of lime. A mile east of its western summit, in the brown spar 
of the White mine, magnetic ore is disseminated. 

The Tilly Foster bed, three miles southeast of Putnam court¬ 
house, is a ridge of ore, 30 feet high, 300 long, and from 10 to 
40 wide, associated with serpentine, limestone (containing bru- 
cite or boltonite), and green mica, with a wall of gneiss on the 
east and serpentine, limestone and verd antique on the west. 
Half a mile southeast some tons were found mixed with man- 
ganesian garnet, augite and hornblende. 

The Simewog hill ore of Townsend’s mine in Southeast 
town, Putnam county New York is the oldest known in this 
region, having been carted to Danbury Connecticut and places on 
Long Island Sound, but was abandoned about 1820 after 50,000 
tons had been taken out here, and 100,000 further along the 
outcrop on the hill. Mather calculated in 1842 that a million 
tons were still above the water level of the Croton river. The 
vein was traced a mile and a half, and probably runs on a 
mile further south-southwest. 1 When crossed by a run, the 
vein is from 8 to 14 feet thick and nearly vertical, between 
gneiss and liornblendic gneiss walls, dipping 70° to 85° east- 

i The compass variation at Mr. Wood’s house is described by Mather to be 30°—40°, 
page 114. 


404 


PART IT.- DIVISION II. 


southeast. On Simewog hill it is 20 feet thick between the same 
rocks and granite, and sunk on 30—60 feet deep for 3 or 400 
yards. Mather’s fig. 12 plate 5 represents it as an igneous out¬ 
burst crossing the strata obliquely just where it reaches the 
surface, which is extremely improbable. 

The Phillips vein in Putnam county, has been mined along 
the east ridge of the Highlands 2 at intervals for eight miles in many 
places. Dykes and faults cross it. It crosses the Coldspring and 
Patterson creek turnpike nine mile from Coldspring-landing near 
the crest of the mountain, and seems here to be injected in little 
sheets, veins and beds through the gneiss, so as to form from one- 
fourth to three-fourths of the mass through a thickness of 30 or 
35 feet vertical strata. Pyrites abound. The ore may be traced 
by black bands in the rock. A quarter of a mile southwest 500 
tons spoilt by pyrites were thrown out to slack. Further on, the 
ore and rock, mixed, measure 10-20 feet, in gneiss and liorn- 
blendic gneiss, dipping 60° east-southeast. Then comes the 
upper main Phillips line, more or less pyritous. The lower 
mine has a solid rock roof, is 15 to 20 feet wide, and 30 to 40 
feet deep. The ore here is nearly pure magnetic, compact, in a 
rock mostly pearly grey wrinkled feldspar with some blue 
quartz ; hornblende is also common. From this opening 20 to 
30,000 tons had been taken out previous to 1842, and 3 to 5,000 
from other openings half a mile further on southwest. Other 
openings further on bring us to 

The Stewart mine, on a continuation of the Phillips vein, 
composed of 12 feet pure and 4 feet lean ore, the former used 
by forges, the latter by furnaces. 3 “The ore here is purer than 


2 This topographical fact is sufficient evidence of its non-igneous and truly sedimentary 
origin. A crack in the crust of the earth coming up just along the crest of a mountain 
for eight miles is an absurdity, not to be discussed. Were it a vein of solid iron a thou¬ 
sand or even a hundred feet thick, then it would act topographically after ejection like a 
massive sandrock rib, and form the backbone and crest of a mountain. As the case 
stands it must be even topographically looked upon as an accidental element of the mas¬ 
sive metamorphosed rocks which form the rib and crest of the ridge. Viewing them 
chemically , Dr. Beck did not fail to recognize the same fact, for he says, “ there 
are here apparently three distinct deposits of this ore, scarcely differing from each 
other, except in the proportion of iron pyrites which they contain. However much 
they may resemble veins when on the surface of the rock, wherever they have been 
opened to any extent, they are found to be parallel with the general stratification.”— 
Report , p. 11. 

3 In 1842 Mather reports the Coldspring Furnace and Bonnell’s Forge at Phillipstown 
as the only works left in working order in the counties of New York, Westchester and 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


405 


that of any mine I have seengranular, 
easily broken and crumbling into shot. The ' eW ° r 
mine is on the east slope of the mountain one or two hundred 
feet above the marsh and in feldspathic gneiss dipping 70° west- 
northwest. Half a mile soutli-southwest is another opening in 
lean ore mixed with gneiss. Three-fourths of a mile further on is 

The Denny mine, on a prolongation of the Phillips vein, on 
one of the crests of the mountains half a mile east-northeast of 
Warren’s Tavern in Pliillipstown. Ore compact, pretty pure, 
but often largely silicious, strongly magnetic, polar, easily pow¬ 
dered, black, analyzing 89.00 mag. ox. 11.00 silica, etc. and 
associated with silica, feldspar and rarely carbonate lime and 
asbestus. The vein sometimes shows in parallel stripes on the 
surface of the rock; at others large masses exist below with no 
out-show, and the vein sends strings into the walls from ■§■ to an 
inch thick. The solid ore in the mine in 1842 was 25 feet wide, 
and two hundred yards southwest is another opening 60 feet 
deep and 20 to 30 wide from which 20 to 30,000 tons had been 
removed in 1842. A third opening 30 feet deep to water level 
shows the vein split by a rock-horse 5 feet thick. 

The Coalgrove mine is a mile further on, on a narrow vein, 
in gneiss, 4 feet wide twelve feet beneath the surface ; ore rich 
and right for the forge. 4 

The Gouverneur mine, is two miles further on and 4 miles 
east of the Phillips manor house, opened along the crest of the 
mountain to a depth of 5 to 20 feet, vertical, ore disseminated 
in gneiss and granitoid rock. Between this and the Coalgrove 
mine titaniferous magnetic ore disseminated and in lumps 
occupies a gangue from 6 to 12 feet wide. 5 

The Theall vein midway between Croton Falls and Brew¬ 
ster’s Station on the Harlem railroad, which at one point passes 
within a third of a mile of the main bed of ore, is thus described 
by Dr. Deck of Hew York in 1856 : “ It is found in the north¬ 
ern face of a hill or bluff, a spur or offshoot of the Simewog 
mountain, about sixty feet high in the vicinity ot the present 
opening, and gradually rising to an altitude of about six hun¬ 
dred, in the length of half a mile, running nearly due south. 

tr 

Putnam. The Furnace ran on Phillips & Denny ore, east, and Townsend’s Canterbury 
and O’Neill’s Warwick ore, west of the river.— Mather p. 546. 

* Mather, p. 563. 8 Mather, p. 564. 


406 


PART n. —DIVISION II. 


This spur or hill is of granitic gneiss, but where the ore comes 
in immediate contact with the walls or sides, it is hornblendic, 
and highly charged with particles of the magnetic oxide ; the 
course of the vein is Nl2°E, S12°W. The inclosing rock has 
nearly the same dip as the ore vein itself, about 72 degrees. . . . 
The vein in its descent after 40 feet, undergoes a slight change 
to a more vertical angle, and will probably continue to increase 
thus at greater depths. It is first exposed about twenty feet 
w T ide in an open cut, from the surface down about eight feet; 
here it is much mixed with pyrites and hornblendic gneiss, but 
improves in its width and quality at every foot in descent, and 
at water level about 45 feet from the surface, presents a clear 
unbroken face of superior ore from 25 to 35 feet wide, and con¬ 
tinues to increase in richness and width about 1 foot in 3 ; the 
accumulation of water can be readily overcome by the eligible 
position for draining into the valley below. There is at present 
shown a breast of ore 70 feet high, and from 30 to 40 feet wide 
(exclusive of the dykes), and extending into the whole length of 
the hill; this, as far as computation may be made upon the quan¬ 
tity of ore, from its area and specific gravity, will give an esti¬ 
mate of several millions of tons. About 2,000 tons have already 
been mined. The entire width of the vein has not yet been 
arrived at; there are dykes or protrusions of the rock cutting 
the vein obliquely, and assuming a wedge shape in their descent, 
which I am firmly of opinion thin out at certain depths, leaving 
the vein below in one unbroken width. 

“ I observe in the entire width of the opening now exposed, 
four apparently large veins, intersected by as many dykes, plainly 
visible ; two towards the west, one in the centre, and one east¬ 
erly. These four, I doubt not, will be found continuous in a 
solid vein upon further excavation, at a moderate depth. My 
opinion is, that these dykes being of the same material as the 
surrounding rocks, the splitting up and intrusion of them 
arises from the anticlinal axis formed by the upheaval, subsi¬ 
dence, and consequent dislocation of the range in which thev 
are found, and which places the parts of the veins by folds, in 
the strata, in such relationship that they appear to be more than 
one vein; but until further and deeper explorations be made, 
this opinion must remain as a hypothesis. On the easterly 
edge of the vein, the dyke has been cut through to a thickness 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


407 


of two feet, and exposes a mass of ore 
of tlie richest quality, and bidding fair to ' eW ° r ' 
be very extensive; the width by the variation of the com¬ 
pass, showing over seven feet, again intersected by ano¬ 
ther dyke. And on the western slope, though the ore is thin¬ 
ner and leaner, the same indications present themselves. 

44 I have made a careful analysis of samples of the ore taken 
by myself from about forty feet depth on the vein, and consider 
it a fair average sample of the whole vein now exposed. The 
best and lowest ore is highly magnetic, sometimes polaric, of a 
greenish-black color and streak, disposed in columnar or tabular 
masses which readily break in one line of cleavage, crystalline, 
or more properly pyrocrystalline in its structure, and in its most 
compact state is met with at the lowest part, is very unchange¬ 
able in its composition ; at the surface it is dense and somewhat 
interspersed with pyrites or sulphuret of iron, but gradually 
loses it, so that at a depth of forty feet it is scarcely visible even 
by a lens. 

44 Analysis . • 

Protoxide of Iron, 2G.30 ) Metallic iron, Oxide of Manganese, .75 
Peroxide of Iron, 57.00 j 59.80 Sulphur, 1.20 

Silica, 13.10 Phosphate of Lime, .40 

Titanic Acid, 1.25 - 

100.00 


Traces of Copper and Zinc. Specific gravity 5.078. 

“ In conclusion, I would note, that in applying the term 4 beds 
or deposit ’ to this ore, I allude to its present aspect as qualify¬ 
ing the expression; but when the walls are reached on either 
side, its characteristic features as a vein will fully develop them¬ 
selves, for there is no doubt whatever that these iron accumula¬ 
tions are true veins , and are thus connected with larger masses 
below of an unknown width and depth.” 8 . . . . 

Dr. Deck’s opinions and description are irreconcilably at vari¬ 
ance in this instance. His 44 dykes ” are parallel partings in the 
bed ; he says himself they are of the same character as the wall 
rocks. Of course they are no dykes, but interval sediments. 
He has no ground for supposing that they will run out as the 
bed or beds of ore are worked downwards, except the inte¬ 
rest of the Mott Haven (A. M. I. C.) company to whom he pre- 


6 Report to the American Magnetic Iron Company, 1857. 





408 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


sents the report. If one or other of them thin away by virtue 
of the lenticular structure of all such partings, one or more will 
lap in to take their place, as described in other mines of this 
range, and as in the case of all sedimentary partings in all kinds 
of beds. The sections given in the Prospectus of the company in 
1856, although unskillfully drawn and therefore not agreeing at 
all with each other, show this ore bed as a regular top layer 
curving over conformably with the other rocks of the hill along 
its surface. The bed is no “ true vein” by its own showing. 

Crossing the Hudson River into Orange and Rockland 
counties the Highlands carry forward their gneissoid rocks and 
veins of magnetic iron ore towards Hew Jersey. Most of the 
mines, says Mather, 7 are on three or four lines which extend 
across the counties from northeast to southwest, sometimes con¬ 
tinuous and sometimes heaved to the right or left. 

Butter Hill mines, Deer Hill mines, Clove mine, O’Heil mine 
and the Forshee mine, seem to lie along a line following the 
northwest face of the Highlands. The veins on Constitution 
island above described prolonged southwestward seem to open 
at the new West Point mine, Meek’s, Krankheit’s, Forest of 
Dean, Greenwood (or else the Hassenclever), Patterson, Moun¬ 
tain, Long mine, Crossway, Stirling mine and another on the 
Hew Jersey line. A third range seems to start at the north 
side of the Crow’s Hest at the Pound Pond mine; and a fourth 
from Fort Montgomery by Queensbury mine and Pich mine; 
both run into Hew Jersey. 8 

At Fort Montgomery lower-landing magnetic ore with 
much pyrites, or in a gangue of pyrites, occurs, and magnetic 
sulphuret is said to be abundant. 

The Consook island-neck vein may be continued past the ores 
on the Fort Montgomery and Haverstraw road and Haverstraw 
and Queensbury road, and thence up through the Tymp or 
gorgo between the Bear and Dunderhead. 

O O 

The Queensbury Furnace is said to have an ore bed 
near it. 9 

At West Point a bed of magnetic ore occurs 200 yards 
east of the reservoir, with hornblende, and traceable towards 

Meek’s mine on the west part of Bear Hill southwest of 
Buttermilk Falls where the ore is titaniferous. 


1 Report, p. 565. 


8 Mather, p. 565. 


9 Mather’s Report. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


409 


Kronkeit’s mine is tliree miles from Fort 
Montgomery and five miles southwest of ^ ew York. 
West Point and has a double bed, divided by a sheet of rock, 
the ore beds varying from a few inches to 10 feet in thickness, 
dipping 70° west-northwest, and traceable eighty rods north- 
northeastward. About 1805 or ’10 800 tons of superior ore 
were taken out. 1 

Round Pond mine, a quarter of a mile northwest of the 
pond yielded many years ago pure forge ore. Near the north¬ 
east end of the pond another was opened afterwards. 8 

Smith’s mine, opened in 1828 and abandoned before 1842, 
lies between Crow’s Nest and Butterhill, two miles from Kron¬ 
keit’s landing, 4 feet thick, dipping with gneiss, and strongly 
magnetic. 3 

The Forest of Dean mine, three miles southwest of Kron¬ 
keit’s and six west-northwest of Fort Montgomery, belonged to 
G. Ferris in 1842 and had been worked many years. 4 This vast 
bed, 150 feet broad, for 70 feet down the dip (40°-60° east-south¬ 
east) between gneiss, said to be solid ore, had yielded up to 
1842, at least 40,000 tons from an open quarry which was aban¬ 
doned on account of imperfect drainage. A peculiar associated 
granite u seems to form imbedded and capping masses to the 
mass of ore.” 5 Dr. Beck says the vein is from 30 to 36 feet thick; 
the ore attracted by the magnet, usually free from sulphur, 
making cold-short iron when unmixed but good bars and cast¬ 
ings when mixed with ore from the neighboring mine. The 
same bed perhaps appears two miles up the stream. 

The Queensborougli mine, is an extensive and long-wrought 
mine near the last. 

The Green and Titus Deer Hill Canterbury mine yields 
granular, friable, good ore, in gneiss associated with quartz, 
feldspar and actinolite. Other ore near by has associated 
ilmenite and zircon . 6 Magnetic iron is found in many places in 
Cornwall of good quality but not much explored, as, near the 
foot of Butter Hill on Clarke’s land and on Deer Hill on Wood’s 
and Titus’ lands. 7 

1 Mather’s R. p. 567. 2 Mather’s R. p. 567. 3 Beck’s R. p. 10. 

4 It must be one of the oldest in the State for it supplied a furnace in 1756 (twenty-one 
years previously to 1777 when it was abandoned), since when its ore has been carried to 
Queensborough, etc.— Beck’s Rep. p. 10. 

5 Mather’s R. p. 566. c Beck’s R. p. 10. 7 Mather, p. 571. 


410 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


The Greenwood mine, in Monroe township Orange county, 
two miles southeast of Greenwood furnace, shows three beds, 
side by side, the middle one 9 feet thick, dipping southeast in 
gneiss rocks; the ore mostly compact, hard, containing enough 
sulphur to require roasting. Hornblende augite, coccolite and 
mica crystals are large and numerous. 8 

The Townsend Long mine, five miles southwest of 
Southfield furnace, in Orange county, was systematically 
wrought long before the He volution, being discovered by 
David Jones in 1761. It lies conformably in gneiss, is trace¬ 
able over a mile, and was wrought for 40 rods in 1839, 16 feet 
wide with a few inches of rock-parting in the middle, 9 and 
crossed at right angles by a flint dyke 2 feet thick. The ore is 
bluish black strongly magnetic, but not polar, associated with 
hornblende, sahlite, slaty gneiss, gneissoid hornblende, and 
reddish granite. Dr. Beck says it was mined badly, closed up 
and reopened just previous to 1842. The gangue varies much, 
sometimes quartz, sometimes feldspar prevailing, and sometimes 
black mica. The ore will strike fire owing to disseminated 
minute crystals of quartz; course nearly north; dip east; 
fracture columnar, granular; hard to crush. Its spec. grav. 
is 4.885, analysis perox. 70.50, protox. 25.40, ox. mang. 1.60, 
silica etc. 2.50. Nearly 40,000 tons had been mined previous 
to 1842. 1 

The Patterson mine half a mile southwest of the last, is a 
bed of ore similar to the Long mine ore, 20 feet thick as mined 
150 feet in length, sinking with the dip between granite rocks 
which are disturbed. It was discovered in 1831 by John 
Patterson and has yielded 1,000 tons per annum, of rich mag¬ 
netic, polar ore, used to smelt with O’Neil and other infusible 
ores, or lean limonite ores. 2 It differs from the Long mine ore 
chiefly in containing more silica; and makes red-short iron. 8 

The Mountain, Antoine, Conklin and New mines lie 
nearly parallel in a group fifty rods north from the Patterson, 
each from 4 to 8 feet thick and yield alike a rich black magnetic 
polarized red-short ore, associated with very beautiful laminated 

8 Mather, p. 566. Beck, 7. 

9 Dr. Horton, Third Geol. Report, New York, 1839, pp. 163, 173. Mather says that 
but one layer 6 feet thick has been worked.— Report , 567. 

1 Dr. Beck. 2 Mather, p. 568. 


3 Beck, p. 6. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


411 


salilite, hornblende and feldspar. The Moun¬ 
tain was discovered in 1758 by a hunter, and ^ ew York, 
chiefly worked before the Revolution, the iron being sent most 
of it to England, celebrated for its strength and fine polish. 4 
Two fifteen inch dykes cross the vein at an angle of 45°. 

The Crossway mine a third of a mile further southwest 
than the Mountain was 65 feet deep and 150 yards long in 1842 
in a vertical bed 14 feet thick of moderately red-short ore very 
similar to the Patterson, associated with hornblende epidote, 
mica and adularia. It was discovered by John Ball in 1793 
and thirty thousand tons were taken out before 1842. 6 

The Antoine is a continuation of the Crossway, Mountain, 
Patterson vein thrown by a succession of faults. “The same 
rocks and minerals and intervening sheets of rock in the ore 
were observed.” How could Prof. Mather write this sentence 
and imagine an igneous origin of the vein a possibility ? How 
can the liveliest superstition accept as a fact an outflow of 
molten iron-ore along a crevasse several miles in length divided 
by a partition of rock like that which so naturally subdivides a 
coal bed or bed of shale ? 

The Sterling mines also in Monroe are about a mile south¬ 
west from Crossway mine at the south end of Sterling Pond at 
the north end of Sterling mountain, and opened for three miles 
along the outcrop of the vein of rich, granular, compact, cold¬ 
short ore associated with crystallized green hornblende, sahlite, 
green mica, fleshy feldspar and octahedral iron, between granite 
and coarse sienite greatly disturbed, but dipping northeast and 
east conformably, alternating with the ore a number of times not 
determined. 6 The ore lies naked about fifty rods wide by 150 
yards in length ; in many places its surface is even and polished 
as if ground off by the sliding of the rocks. 7 Prof. Mather 
says drift-scratches traverse it, he thinks from north to south. 
A sketch of the mines and lake is given from memory in plate 
30 fig. 4 of Mather’s Report. The first mine was discovered in 
1750 and named after the proprietor Lord Stirling, and a blast¬ 
furnace erected in 1751 by Ward and Colton, since when up to 
1842 about 140,000 tons had been taken out. It then averaged 
2.000 tons per annum. The ore is neutral, fusible, strong, and 


4 Mather, Report, p. 568. 
s This again shows the sedimentary structure. 


6 Mather, Report, p. 569. 

7 Dr. Horton. 


412 


PART IT.—DIVISION II. 


largely used for ordnance casting and bar iron. No dykes are 
seen. The ore as seen is from 10 to 20 feet thick, inclining 
30°, on a smooth grey granite rock, 3 feet thick, under which is 
a bed of soft pure rich ore, and under this again Dr. Horton 
pronounces positively to exist a third “ immense bed.” The 
ore is exposed on the mountain slope facing the lake, 301 yards 
along and 150 yards up and down, with 500,000 tons in sight in 
1842. Some of the ore is pyritous. 8 It is evident from this 
description and from the sketch, that we have here a double or 
triple sediment curving around the ends of shallow anticlinal 
issuing from the end of the Stirling mountain. 

The Belcher mine on the same property, but a mile and a 
half distant to the southwest at the southern end of the ridge, is 
a cold-short ore, believed to be a prolongation of the Sterling 
bed. It was found in 1792 by Jacob Belcher and was in 1839 
wrought out 115 feet wide without touching walls [probably on 
a flat bed]. 9 It yields 48 per cent iron. 

The Red mine or Spruce Swamp mine is nearly three 
miles south of the Long mine (above described), was discovered 
in 1780 by J. Stuperfell and has been but little wrought because 
its ore is very pyritous and valuable only for fluxing hard re¬ 
fractory cold-short black oxides. These magnetic ore-beds 
alternate with rock layers and decompose rapidly to an iron rust 

The Clove mine, owned in 1842 by G. Wilkes, one mile 
south of Monroe village Orange county New York is the near¬ 
est to the New Jersey State line of the magnetic ore beds of the 
Highlands. It has been long and extensively mined ; a com¬ 
pact, granular red-short ore, with more or less pyrites dissemi¬ 
nated, and decomposed to a black powder at the south end 
which needs no roasting. The solid ore lies in beds from a few 
inches to a few feet in thickness alternating with rock layers 
and covering a great extent of ground with a very gentle dip. 
The openings were 500 feet long in 1839. The ore contains 
98.80 proto-peroxide +1.10 silica and alumina, and is associated 
with mica, hornblende, quartz, feldspar, asbestus, occasionally 
carbonate of lime, serpentine, octahedral chrome and soapstone. 
Granitoid gneiss is seen just on the eastern side of the ore bed, 



8 Mather, p. 570. 


9 Dr. Horton’s Third Report. 


TIIE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


413 


“ which is stratified vertically and com¬ 
posed of magnetic oxide more or less ^ ew ^ or k' 
mixed with pyrites and hornblende.” The ore-parting rocks 
are sometimes gneiss loaded with magnetic ore-grains. Dr. Beck 
saw well characterized hematite on the surface in the imme¬ 
diate vicinity of the magnetic ore. Prof. Mather only 
saw it at a little distance to the north, under beds of 
gravel. Granite, gneiss and syenite occur to the west and 
southwest, and between them and the ore bed and a little west 
ot the limonite (hematite) are seen beds of the calciferous 
(Low r er Silurian No. II) limestone of the Champlain division 
u not more altered than the limestone near the Copake [hema¬ 
tite] ore bed [east of Hudson] or that on the eastern side of 
the Amenia [hematite] ore bed [east of Poughkeepsie].” 1 Here 
then we have all the phenomena of the Essex county beds of 
the Adirondack and Lake Champlain county reappearing with 
the reappearance of the including rocks, gneiss, serpentine and 
limestone of a well marked age, with the beds of hematite ores 
east of the Hudson to mediate between these distant localities. 
It is impossible to doubt the sedimentary nature of the deposits. 

The O’Neil or Nail mine one mile southeast of the Clove is 
a vast bed of magnetic ore, owned in 1842 by Gouv. Kemble, 
and at that time opened 150 by 500 feet on the surface 20 feet 
deep, having been wrought since 1823 at the rate of 2,000 tons 
per annum, a portion of the southeast wall being visible, with a 
vertical dyke several feet thick cutting through the bed nearly 

crystallized in octa¬ 
hedrons and rarely in cubes in the seams; contains pyrites, 
requires roasting; is hard and compact; analyzes 95.75 proto- 
peroxide, 4.25, silica and alumina, and makes red-short iron; 
associated minerals, white and abundant calc-spar, rose garnet, 
green coccolite, dark salilite, massive hornblende, flosferri arra- 
gonite, amianthus and serpentine. 2 

“ A mass of syenite or feldspar rock projects into the mine on the southwest but it 
is more than half surrounded by ore wlrch lies partly on opposite sides of it. The 
ore lies very irregularly, in some places very pure, in others more or less mixed 
with hornblende, serpentine, calc and rhomb spar, verd antique, etc. Much of the 
ore seems to be an intimate union of magnetic oxide and serpentine , so that it has 
much the aspect and color of the dark green serpentine; much seems also intimately 
blended with greenish hornblende. The mine is a place of great interest to the 

1 Mather, p. 572, from Horton, 1839, p. 162. 2 Horton in Mather. 


east and west. The ore is often beautifully 


414 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


mineralogist. Many very well characterized and beautiful minerals occur here. 
The crystallized magnetic ore makes the most bri.liant and beautiful specimens of 
any locality I have ever seen vying with the richest from Elba.” Prof. Mather then 
gives a list of minerals. 

The Torshee mine half a mile southwest of the O’Neil is a 
mass of many alternating layers of magnetic ore and gneiss rock 
dipping 40° east, underlaid with gneiss, hornblende and augite 
and forming nearly the whole of a hill a quarter of a mile long 
and wide. Some of the ore is compact, some granular and loose 
like shot, with large bodies in the condition of a black powder 
free from pyrites, which to some extent contaminates the solid 
ore. Umber is abundant. Red garnet, brown tremolite, green 
coccolite, yellow and black serpentine, calc spar, asbestus and 
mica are present. The locality which furnishes large sheets of 
mica is half a mile further west. Garnets and augite abound 
in the rocks west of the mine. 3 The ore is sometimes cavernous 
or cellular where the umber lies and then consists of 52.75 
peroxide, 44.10 protoxide, 3.15 silica and alumina, with traces 
of oxide titanium and manganese. The umber consists of 68.00 
peroxide iron, 8.50 peroxide manganese, 6.50 silica and alumina, 
17.00 water. This cavernous ore is especially esteemed by the 
furnace men; it need not be roasted. 4 

In southern New York in 1856 Sufifern’s and Ramapo forges work up pig-metal 
and scrap iron. Ramapo however has two bloomary fires for ore besides its steel 
works. Two abandoned forges once used the ore on the creek back of Warren, on 
the west bank of Tappan sea ; and two old bloomaries on the Ramapo once worked 
up the ore ; three more used to bloom Stirling ore. Now all this work is done by 
the furnaces at Greenwood Orange county, one anthracite (A 17) and one char¬ 
coal (E 37), using the magnetic ore from the Monroe mines within four miles east 
and west of the stack ; the Southfield furnace (E 38) using California and Oregon 
and a little Crossway ores (all Sterling mines six miles southeast of the furnace) ; 
and the new Sterling furnace (E 39) using Lower California, Upper California, and 
Summit mine ores (If, 2 and miles north), Great Sterling (2f), Fourteen foot 
vein and Oregon eight foot vein (4), Crosswav (4J), Mountain vein (4J), Long Mine 
(4f), and six or seven other small veins near the furnaces. The old Sterling fur¬ 
nace has been abandoned fifty years, so have the Croton, Haverstraw, Orange and 
Woodbury furnaces. 5 

* Horton in Mather. 4 Beck, p. 8. 6 Bulletin Amer. Iron Ass. July 1, 1857. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


415 


The belt of gneissoid Huronian rocks where it crosses from 
New York into New Jersey is about twenty miles wide, 
and where it crosses the Delaware river it is about twelve miles 
wide, it is crowded with iron works near the New York line. 
Its ores are similar to those of Essex and Clinton counties in 
northern New York, and cannot lie very far beneath the horizon 
of the Potsdam sandstone and Trenton limestone, which border 
it on the north and fill hollows between its ridges; just as they 
border the same rocks and ores upon Lake Champlain. In both 
regions graphite, pyroxene, tourmaline, garnet, scapolite, feld¬ 
spar and other rarer minerals are abundant with many varieties. 
Magnetic iron occurs diffused in the rock as well as in beds, or 
groups of parallel beds lying in close proximity, separated by 
“ barren country.” The magnetic oxide prevails. The specular 
peroxide is abundant only at one locality and there it is mixed 
with the magnetic oxide. The beds are included between gneiss 
strata; their course is that of the mountain belt, north-northeast 
south-southwest and their dip commonly to the east-southeast at 
from 45° to 90°. Their thickness varies from a thread to twenty 
feet, including ore and gangue, from wall to wall. Occasion¬ 
ally horses of barren-ground slice up the ore, and sometimes cut 
across the bed, even displacing it. The ore itself is granular and 
crystalline, but not so coarse as the coarse ores of Lake Cham¬ 
plain ; sometimes it is close, compact, smooth and lustrous; 
sometimes columnar or in square-jointed blocks; sometimes in 
magnetic grains mixed more or less with hornblende, actinolite, 
quartz, mica, calc spar and other crystals. Specimens from 
Dickerson’s mine will sustain their own weight as magnets. 

Supposing these beds to be original deposits, their nearly uni¬ 
form dip to the southeast can only be explained by imagining 
the whole of this disturbed belt of Huronian rocks to lie in a 
series of anticlinal and synclinal waves, collapsed and leaning 
over on their northwest sides. Professor James T. Hodge, whose 
original manuscripts has been kindly furnished for these descrip¬ 
tions believes them to be veins ejected through parallel fissures 
conforming to the interstitial or bedding planes of the metamor¬ 
phosed rocks in which they occur. On the other hand Dr. Kitchell 
of New Jersey in his third annual report of the geological sur¬ 
vey for 1856 expresses the contrary and at present the more 
probable opinion that they are of sedimentary origin. He says: 


416 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


In my last annual report, upwards of eighty iron mines were enumerated and 
described, all of which are situated in t£ie counties of Sussex, Passaic, Morris, and 
Warren and within an area of three hundred and sixty square miles. Although 
some of them have been worked for a century and a half, and in early days 
furnished a very large proportion of the ore manufactured into iron in this country, 
yet they have been excavated to a very limited extent, many of them containing 
immense bodies of ore above water-level which may be economically extracted 
without the employment of expensive machinery. It is estimated that they could 
be made to yield, advantageously, no less than one million tons of ore annually for 
many years to come, which would be sufficient to supply half of the present annual 
consumption of iron in the United States. 

The different forms in which magnetic iron ore occurs in this district, are as 
follows : First, in granules disseminated through the gneissoid rock as one of its 
necessary constituent minerals. The granules vary in size from particles so small 
that they cannot be seen with the naked eye, to grains corresponding in size with 
the other constituent minerals of the rock. Second, in masses or bunches of very 
limited extent. This form generally occurs in those rocks that are the most highly 
metamorphosed—as the quartzo-feldspathic and syenitic rocks. These rocks, when 
considered with respect to their constituent minerals, do not exhibit a distinct 
lamination, nor when considered en masse do they exhibit distinct lines of stratifica¬ 
tion, as in gneiss or in mica and hornblendic schists ; nevertheless, they generally 
pass into these latter rocks so insensibly that no line of demarcation can be drawn 
between them. Third, in seams or strata, varying from the fraction of an inch to 
thirty feet in thickness. They alternate with strata of rock and coincide with them 
in strike and dip. The ore seams, as well as the rocky strata, pitch downward 
beneath the surface towards the northeast at variable angles, and on this account 
the ore is exposed on the surface but to a very limited extent. 

The seams or deposits of ore are generally remarkably pure, but they frequently 
contain in admixture the constituent minerals of their accompanying rocks. Apatite 
(phosphate of lime), hornblende, quartz, feldspar and mica are most common. In 
some portions, as in the Dickerson and Byram ores, apatite, in the form of granules, 
uniformly disseminated through the ore seam, constitutes as much as ten per cent 
of it. This percentage may be considered as the maximum, and confined to few 
mines, and even to very limited spaces in those mines. Hornblende frequently 
enters largely into its composition, as in the Sweede mine, and many others. Mica, 
feldspar and hornblende are very frequently found entering largely into the compo¬ 
sition of the ore seam, sometimes in granules irregularly disseminated through it, as 
in the Hibernia mines, and sometimes in laminge alternating with laminae of ore, as 
in the Beachglenn mine. Iron pyrites (sulphuret of iron) is also a common consti¬ 
tuent of many of the deposits, among which may be mentioned the Silver, Hag¬ 
gerty and Stanhope mines. Quartz in small proportion, in th§ form of granules, 
disseminated throughout the ore, is not uncommon. Generally, when the ore con¬ 
tains a considerable quantity of the above-mentioned minerals in admixture, it is 
laminated, the planes of the lamination depending on one or more of the minerals. 
When, however, it is entirely or nearly free from impurities, it possesses a columnar 
structure, the general direction of the planes of the joints being at rig]it angles 
to the inclination or dip of the ore seam. Large wedge-shaped masses of rock, 
composed of quartz, hornblende, feldspar, mica and magnetite, called by miners 
“ horses,” frequently occur imbedded in the ore seams. Generally a line of demar¬ 
cation can be drawn between the “ horse rock ” and ore, but so insensibly do they 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


417 


sometimes pass into each other that it is difficult to tell where the one begins and 
the other ends. They vary in extent, from regular seams or strata of rock alternat¬ 
ing with the ore, to small irregular wedge-shaped masses, the longer axis corres¬ 
ponding with the strike of the strata, and its lamination, which is generally per¬ 
ceptible, corresponding with the lamination of the adjoining rocks. 

That the rocky formation of this district, including the gneiss, the hornblende 
and mica schists, the magnetic iron ore, and the quartzo-feldspathic rocks, are of 
metamorphic origin, there can be but little doubt; consequently, it is conceived 
that they were originally deposited by water in a horizontal position, that they 
are composed of materials derived from preexisting rocks, and that they were sub¬ 
sequently disturbed in their position, and altered by metamorphic agencies, which 
have caused them to assume their present form and position. The origin, therefore, 
of these deposits of magnetic iron ore, is identical and cotemporaneous with the 
rocky strata in which they are inclosed. 

To such an extent is magnetic iron ore disseminated through the rocky formation, 
that deflection of the magnetic needle is of frequent occurrence; so much so, 
that great difficulty is often experienced in surveying with this instrument. The 
amount of deflection and the distance at which it is produced, depend on the quan¬ 
tity of magnetic ore disseminated in the rock, and its position with respect to the 
surface; and as these are variable, no rule can be established by which the amount 
of deflection and the distance at which it is produced can be calculated. A very 
small mass of magnetic ore near the surface is frequently sufficient to reverse the 
needle, even when it is placed several feet above the ore, as in the case of a sur¬ 
veyor’s compass when supported on the tripod; and on the other hand, a large 
body of ore a few feet beneath the surface would produce but a slight deflection. 
Seams of ore five feet in thickness have been observed to deflect the needle at a 
distance of thirty feet; the intensity of its influence increasing as the magnetic axis 
of the ore is approached. Some deposits of ore possess more than one magnetic 
axis. On placing the needle on the outcrop of such a deposit, so that the axis of 
the needle will correspond with the magnetic axis of the ore, and then gradually - 
moving the needle in the direction of the ore seam, it will be reversed as many 
times as there are magnetic axes in the deposit. This is probably due to the differ¬ 
ence in intensity of the magnetic properties of the ore in different parts of the same 
deposit. When a seam of ore is capped with rock even to the extent of a few feet, 
its influence on the magnetic needle when placed directly over it on the surface, is 
very variable; in some localities producing a great deflection, and in others but 
very little. So variable have been the results of the observations, with respect to 
this, that no rule can be established that would determine the greatest depth at 
which the needle would be affected, nor that would determine the quantity of ore 
from a given deflection of the needle at the surface. The smallest fragments of ore 
frequently possess magnetic polarity and a magnetic axis; the extent of their mag¬ 
netic qualities depending on their position with respect to the surface; the nearer 
to the surface, the greater will be their magnetic properties. This appears to de¬ 
pend on the action of surface water and atmospheric agents; for it has been fre¬ 
quently observed that ore when first taken out of a mine at a considerable depth, 
possessed but slight magnetic properties, but on being exposed to the atmosphere 
for a few months or years, it would increase so much that excellent hand specimens 
of loadstone for experimental purposes could be selected therefrom. Seams of ore 
that contain numerous joints and fissures, through which water and atmospheric 


27 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


£18 

agents pass, possess more decided magnetic properties tl an those which are more 
compact and less free from crevices and fissures. 4 * 

“ Sabine’s observations of the inclination and intensity, at different parts of Scot¬ 
land, do not at all indicate disturbances effected by large mountains at con¬ 
siderable distances.” (Reich.) On the other hand, Hansteen “ states that large 
mountain ranges exercise a sensible influence upon the mean direction of the mag¬ 
netic needle. This result is obtained from an extended series of observations, made 
by himself, as to the deviation and dip of the magnetic needle, and the magnetic 
force, during a journey through Sweden, and especially through the mountainous 
western part of Norway.” 6 Bischof, after citing numerous observations that have 
been made in various parts of the world by different observers, in regard to the 
influence of mountains on the magnetic needle, concludes as follows: “ Assuming 
that it is magnetic iron ore alone, either as masses or disseminated through rocks, 
to which the magnetic influences are to be ascribed, and in my opinion this is quite 
unquestionable, it would seem, that magnetic observations, instituted with the same 
degree of care as those made by Reich, would be well adapted for the discovery of 
hidden beds of magnetic iron ore. Such observations might, therefore, prove emi¬ 
nently serviceable to the iron industry. Certainly, it would be requisite first to 
ascertain whether mountain masses, containing only disseminated magnetic iron ore, 
but extending over a considerable surface, would not produce as great an effect as 
beds of magnetic iron ore. Sabine’s observations do not appear to favor this. But, 
however this may be, the magnetic needle indicates the presence of magnetic iron 
ore, where it cannot be recognized mineralogically, and demonstrates the very 
general distribution of this mineral.” The greater number of the seams of ore in 
which the mines are situated have been discovered by indications of the magnetic 
needle. The use of the magnetic needle in revealing hidden beds of ore, of suffi¬ 
cient extent to be of economic value, requires considerable experience ; even then 
the indications of the needle are very deceptive. 

The bar iron made directly from these ores has always been 
considered of excellent quality, probably because the bloomaries, 
consuming little, selected carefully their stock. The old Frank¬ 
lin iron was famous for its broad white radiating crystalline 
structure, and exceeding toughness. But the pig iron made 
from these ores is apt to be either cold-short or red-shot, and 
needs mixed ores and subsequent refining. There has sprung 
up on the Lehigh a large demand for these ores to mix with the 
brown hematites of the Limestone Valley. 

The Sterling beds mined in New York pass over into New 
Jersey and have been worked under many names. Nothing 

4 This looks as if peroxidation were the magnetizing agency, and that specular iron 

ore found as in Vermont under the pseudomorphous form of magnetic iron ore had lost 
its magnetism by being over peroxidized; in other words, by the proper magnetic pro¬ 
portion of the protoxide and peroxide being overturned by the peroxidation going 
too far. 

6 Chemical and Physical Geology of Gustav Bischof, translated by Benjamin H. Paul, 
ii. 500. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


419 


but the broken nature of the country, and 

the distance from the anthracite coal region ew ^ erse y* 

delays a new and larger exploitation of this valuable region. 

For a century the softened outcrop edges of the beds 

have been worked in surface quarries. The harder body 

of the bed below the weathering influence is left for a future 

necessity. 

Professor IT. D. Rogers in the Report of the Geological 
Survey of the State of New Jersey in 1840, describes three 
parallel zones of the Dover, Rockaway and Succasunny beds, 
consisting of strings of separate veins very nearly in a line. 
Their workings extend from a little northeast of Hibernia to a 
little southwest of Succasunny. But this classification is open to 
exceptions. The old Chester mine reopened, extends one of 
these three lines much further southwest; while the old Ando¬ 
ver mine, not noticed by him, and the Glendon mine lately dis¬ 
covered a little southwest of it, in the range of the Scott’s moun¬ 
tain ore, ought to add a fourth zone, unsurpassed by either of 
the others for the richness and abundance of its ores. The ores 
of Walkill mountain, Stanhope and Flanders may be connected. 
The southeast belt of Mr. Rogers contains Muir’s mine and the 
Swede mine; the middle belt contains Hibernia, Jackson’s or 
the Sussex Company’s, and Dickerson’s mines near Succasunny; 
the third belt contains the Denmark, Mount Hope, Blue, Teabo, 
Mount Pleasant, Harvey’s Stirling and Burwell mines. 

The hydrated peroxide ore is found in great quantities in Sus¬ 
sex county near Hamburg; but the whole aspect of this coun¬ 
try of magnetic ores locked up in gneissoid mountains, is such a 
contrast with the country of hematite ores in limestone and 
sandstone lands beyond the Hudson that no one can hesitate to 
recognize some profound structural difference between the two 
regions. The Green mountains, in the prolongation northward 
of this region, are considered metamorphic palaeozoic rocks by 
the Canadian geologists, and the mining of the magnetic ores 
certainly stops at the Hudson, all the mines to the north of that 
river being in brown hematite deposits in the Lower Silurian 
limestones. We must suppose therefore that the Huronian 
rocks with their iron ores really sink in the region of the Hud¬ 
son and appear to the northward only in the Adirondac region 
west of lake Champlain. Coming southward therefore across 


420 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


the Hudson we do not wonder at the breadth of these hitherto 
concealed and now emerging Huronian rocks, nor at the num¬ 
ber and parallelism of their belts of magnetic ore. 

Hamburg furnace gets its magnetic ore from Sparta, twelve 
miles off; and this same ore is carted 19 miles to Chester rail¬ 
road station and sold in Hew York city, at an expense of $4 00. 

Franklin furnace uses the Walkill mountain magnetic ore, 
four miles east. Professor Hu tall thus described this famous 
ore in Silliman’s Journal for 1822. The eastern bed is a black 
mountain mass, thirty or forty feet in width, of a scarcely at all 
magnetic ore containing 66 per cent, of peroxide of iron (equal 
to 46 per cent of iron,) 16 per cent of zinc and 17 per cent of the 
red oxide of manganese. Upon this rich ore the great furnace 
was built, but the ore has baffled the skill of all who have under¬ 
taken to smelt it, unless the patent process of Mr. Kent of the 
Cooper Furnaces at Trenton shall prove successful upon an 
extended trial. The ore, if used as a mixture with other mag¬ 
netic ores, in a proportion exceeding one-tenth of the whole 
mixture, was found to produce a salamander of iron and man¬ 
ganese crystallizing under the blast into a solid mass. 

Berthier 6 describes this ore as an amorphous mass showing 
some crystalline faces apparently belonging to the regular octa¬ 
hedron ; black; of metallic lustre; deep red-brown powder; 
conclioidal fracture, glistening ; specific gravity 5.09 ; magnetic 
without polarity; readily soluble in hot muriatic acid, giving 
off chlorine and precipitating entire peroxide iron. The accom¬ 
panying minerals are oxide zinc containing deutoxide manga¬ 
nese ; quartz; white lamellar carb. lime; garnet; pyroxene. 

Francis Alger also describes this interesting locality in Silli¬ 
man’s Journal. 7 The ridge containing the principal mineral 
wealth of Sussex county, which commences at Sparta and runs 
through Stirling to Franklin, consists chiefly of granular lime¬ 
stone. Utdn or Arendale in Europe hardly afford the mineralo¬ 
gist a finer cabinet ground. The zinc ore beds extend about 
four miles from Franklin to Stirling and no further, nor do 
boulders of zinc ore occur further northeast, but are found to the 
southwest, and in Pennsylvania the zinc appears again in mass. 
The limestone rocks dip generally 70° or 80° southeast, like .the 


0 Traits des Essais par la voie sSchc, vol. ii. 235. 


1 Vol. xlviii. 


TIIE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


421 


gneissoid rocks hard by. Sometimes blended j 

masses of gneiss and limestone appear includ- 
ing large and shapeless deposits of magnetic ore. Penetrating 
the limestone on the east side of Stirling hill we reach first 
three to seven feet of red oxide zinc and franklinite in about 
equal parts. Backing this and never intermixed with it stands 
a six inch plate of brown ferruginous heavy coarse crystalline 
limestone weathering easily. Then ten to twenty feet of regu¬ 
lar pure franklinite ore, sometimes crystallized in the cavities 
or against the back face of the dark limestone. Behind this bed 
of ore are limestone strata until we reach the gneiss in the 
body of the hill. 

Thus it appears that the Franklinite ore bed is not a vein, 
but an original deposit; a double bed of iron ore, like any in 
the coal-measures; inclosed in (Lower Silurian?) limestone, and 
subdivided by a thin deposit of limestone. 

At Stirling the upper member of the bed, the red oxide of 
zinc forms a prominent wall along the side of the ridge, while 
the lower member of pure franklinite has had its outcrop 
degraded by the weather to a barren gravel. Fifty rods west 
of the principal opening, stands a vast isolated mass, unaccom¬ 
panied by red oxide of zinc, and bearing no resemblance to 
either a bed or vein. The gneiss is close by, as it always is to 
the limestone wherever the magnetic ores exist. 

As an ore of zinc, the pure foliated ore being in small quantity 
and the red oxide of zinc being estimated at one-half, this bed 
is valuable. The franklinite being removed by magnets from 
the roasted and crushed stock, the zinc is reduced in cast iron 
pots covered with charcoal dust. Dr. A. A. Hayes in Mr. 
Alger’s report considers the manganese as a protoxide, and not 
as a deutoxide according to Berthier, and gives the composition: 
foliated red oxide of zinc 93.482, protoxide of manganese 5.5, 
peroxide of iron .360, scales of specular iron ore .440. 

The important hold which this ore has had on public curiosity 
for many years warrants the introduction here of the following 
extract from Dr. Kitchell’s Beport. 

Since Mr. Post’s experiment, two furnaces have been erected for the reduction 
of this ore, one at Newark, at the zinc works of the New Jersey Zinc Company, and 
the-other at Franklin, in the vicinity of the deposit of ore. The former was erected 
for the purpose of reducing the residuum (chiefly franklinite) of the zinc furnaces; 
the latter, for reducing the ore as it occurs in its native bed at Franklin, Sussex county. 


m 


FART II.-DIVISION II. 


The Newark Furnace was erected under the superintendence of Mr. C. E. Detmold 
(late President of the New Jersey Zinc Company), during the autumn of 1855. It 
is a small anthracite blast furnace, twenty feet high, eight feet bosh, and four and 
a half feet tunnel head; has three tuyeres, and is arranged with hot blast. It Is 
made of fire-brick, inclosed by a sheet iron mantle and strengthened by wrought 
iron bands; surmounted by a chimney, ten feet high and four feet six inches square, 
with three doors for charging the furnace. Near the top of the chimney is an 
opening four feet in diameter, through which the zinc passes into a sheet-iron pipe 
leading to the fan. The mouth of the chimney is closed by four dampers, which 
may be raised whenever the zinc and gases do not pass freely into the pipe. 

The ore from which the residuum is derived, is a mixture of franklinite and 
red oxide of zinc. The zinc is extracted in the form of the white oxide by a pro¬ 
cess of sublimation ; the ore having been crushed and mixed with a portion of fine 
coal as a reducing or deoxidizing agent, and then subjected to a high temperature 
in closely muffled furnaces, which causes the vapor of zinc to be evolved and conse¬ 
quently reoxydized, in which state it is used as a paint. 

“ The residuum obtained by this process is composed chiefly of franklinite and 
carbon, in the form of a fine powder, resembling fine sand. The fuel employed is 
anthracite, and the flux oyster-shells. The following quantities were consumed in 
producing a ton of pig iron: residuum, 2.90 tons; coal for furnace, 2.10 tons.; coal 
for boilers, 1.10 tons; coal for hot blast, 0.16 tons = 3.36 tons; oyster shells, 0 43 
tons. For every ton of pig iron produced, one hundred and thirty-six pounds of 
the oxide of zinc were collected; and as the arrangement for allowing the escape 
of the zinc and gas was not sufficient to carry them off, it was found necessary to 
keep open one or two of the dampers at the mouth of the chimney, through which 
a large proportion of the zinc escaped and was lost. When the furnace was in good 
order, the production of pig iron was from thirty to forty tons per week; the resi¬ 
duum yielding from thirty-three to thirty-seven per cent of iron, and the coal 
consumed in the furnace from one and a half to two tons per ton of iron. After 
the furnace had been in blast twenty-one w'eeks, one of the boilers failed, which 
rendered it necessary to “ blow out ” the furnace. During the twenty-one weeks it 
■was in blast, it consumed: residuum, 1,631 tons; coal, 1,860 tons. Its production 
was: pig iron, 552^ tons; oxide of zinc, 77,255 lbs. 

The Franklin furnace was erected and put in blast in the winter of 1854, and 
was in operation only a few weeks. The following is an account of the working of 
the furnace for two weeks, ending March 25, 1855. During a part of this time 
zinc oxide was not collected, on account of a deficiency of power to work the fan : 
ore used, 102.50 tons; coal, 137.00 tons; limestone, 25.20 tons ; iron made, 22.90 
tons; oxide of zinc made, 22,084 lbs. Dr. A. A. Hayes, of Boston, who analyzed 
a specimen of the iron produced, reports: “ In general physical characters, the 
sample resembled ‘white pig iron,’ but a closer inspection shows a different mole¬ 
cular arrangement, by which the crystals are affected in form and distinctness bv 
chemical dissection. The mass of iron exhibits two distinct crystalline aggregations ; 
the broad folia of one of these being separated by thin lamina of a different color, 
hardness, and composition, in this respect resembling meteoric iron. The color of 
the specimens is nearly that of the finer samples of metallic antimony; the masses 
divide easily, but the angles and edges of the imperfect crystals are harder than 
the hardest cast-steel, and in the attempts to obtain a powder, they became 
imbedded in its surface ; a mean specific gravity is at 60° F. 7.665. Electrically, it 
presents a positive part, closely invested by a relatively highly negative body. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


423 


Chemically, its characters are of an imperfect steel; its __ - 

carbon constituent is in the state of that which has been ©W ©I\aey. 
deposited from carbureted gases by a high temperature and has no properties 
in common with graphite. No trace of sulphur was fo ind. A trace of phos- 
phuret of calcium could be detected, but neither zinc, chromium, vanadium, 
nor copper could be found. This occurrence of ore in iron I have often no¬ 
ticed in samples which do not present graphite. There was no evidence of the 
existence of the metallic bases of the earths either. In the following statement 
the iron is presented as a simple alloy, consisting in one hundred parts, of pure 
iron, 93.364; pure manganese, 3.204; pure carbon, 2.250; slag, silica .640; ore 
and alumina .240; lime .170. The mechanical and chemical constitution of this 
iron point to great ease in working it into malleable iron. Both the manganese 
and carbon are readily oxidized by the puddling, while the pure iron will take the 
form of tough or malleable iron very readily. It is also the kind of metal required 
for manufacturing steel, by fusion with oxide of manganese, losing in the operation 
a portion of carbon and all its metallic manganese.” 

An assay of a bar of franklinite iron, manufactured at Stanhope, by Mr. Edwin 
Post, w T as made at the French National Establishment, for the manufacture of chains 
and anchors for the navy, by Mr. Theopliile Bornet, chief of the w r orks and author 
of the “ Tables of the Strength of Metals.” 

“ The bar, obtained by direct treatment of the ore in a Catalan forge, is 25 
millimetres by 24.5 millimetres square, and presents a section in square millime¬ 
tres of. 612.50 m. 

Charge under which the bar began to stretch,. 15,000 Jc. 

Elastic force , per millimetre,. 24.5 Jc. 

Charge under which the bar broke,. 25,000 k. 

Absolute tenacity , per millimetre,. 40.8 k. 

Elongation at the moment of fracture, per millimetre,. 5 m. 

Aspect of the fracture —all nerve. 

“ Observations. —The tensions of the hydraulic press of the national forges, are 
given by means of an excellent apparatus, which indicates the results with the 
greatest precision. An immense number of experiments have been made with this 
press, not only upon all the irons of France, but upon the best irons of England, 
Sweden, Spain and Siberia; never, until the present essay, has any bar been tried 
the absolute tenacity of which surpassed 40. kilogrammes per millimetre. Signed, 
Th. Bornet, Chef des Travaux aux Forges Nationales de la Chassande. Guerigny, 
12 th July , 1850. P. S.—The franklinite iron tried at the forges, works and welds 
to perfection.” 


This ore has lately come into favor as an antidote to red-short 
constituents in other ores. Pompton (New Jersey) pig iron, a 
very red-short metal, mixed .85, with .15 franklinite,works up into 
horseshoe iron. In Scotland late experiments seem to indicate 
that it is equally efficient in the opposite direction ; .20 raw 
franklinite ore mixed in the puddling furnace with .80 Scotch 
cold-short pig metal makes a metal of extraordinary tough¬ 
ness. The zinc and manganese or the zinc alone seems thus 








4 24 


PAJJT II.-DIVISION II. 


to take up botli sulphur and phosphorus and leave the iron 
neutral/ 

The following communication was made to the American Association, Albany, by 
Mr. A. C. Farrington. During the summer of 1848, while engaged in exploring the 
metalliferous veins upon what is called Mine Hill, near the Franklin furnace, Jsew 
Jersey, my attention was arrested by the difference in structural arrangement pre¬ 
sented by the opposite sides of the large vein of franklinite, at different places 
along its extent While much the largest portion of the mass appeared to consist 
of imperfect octahedral crystals, compacted or cemented, other parts appeared like 
an aggregation of their laminae, its crystals resembling tabular spar. This latter 
portion was highly magnetic, and, in pulverizing, I found the hammer would take 
up large quantities of it. Knowing that other parts of the vein did not exhibit this 
property, I pursued my investigation for the purpose of ascertaining how much of 
the ore presented this magnetic property. The result was that it was found only 
where the tabular crystals prevailed, and they only where the vein was in contact with 
syenite , and in tracing across the vein in a right line, magnetic action w as not per¬ 
ceptible for more than four feet. I repeated my experiments, and found four feet 
three inches was the maximum distance that the ore was found magnetic. I broke 
off fragments in a line across the vein, at the distance of three inches from each 
other, and, after pulverizing, weighed one hundred grains from each parcel, and 
applied a common magnet to them. The magnet would take up all or nearly all of 
the pow’der from such parts as came from the side of the vein nearest the igneous 
rock, and gradually diminished as they receded from it. I failed in establishing 
any regular series or ratio for the diminution of magnetic action, but inferred from 
the results that the iron of the Franklinite, in the parts of the vein in contact with 
syenite, was a protoxide, while the mass of the vein was a peroxide ; and intermediate, 
for the distance examined, as before stated, there was a mechanical mixture of the 
two oxides. In presenting these facts, an important geological question arises: 
Is the metamorphism of this metallic vein attributable to the agency of the intrusive 
rocks in contact with it; and, if so, should we not infer that the igneous intrusive 
rock is more recent than the vein of franklinite.* 

The Swede mine eight miles from Pompton furnace is an 
adit level into two beds of magnetic ore, sometimes separated by 
a gneiss or feldspathic wall from two to four feet thick. The 
upper bed is a rich close-grained ore from eight to twelve feet 
thick; the lower is as thick, but mixed with mica and hornblende. 
Hie bed runs north-northeast and dips 50° to 60° east-southeast; 
is shut up in granitoid rocks and has few horses. The ore makes 
an excellent iron, and yields to an analysis by Dr. Wolcott 
Gibbs, oxide of iron 70.85 (iron 49.60); silica 19.71; alumina 
7.81; magnesia 1.70. Both beds come off clean from the walls. 
The ore is shipped upon the canal direct to Boonton at a gross 
cost of 30 cents. 

American Mining Chronicle, Oct. 1(5, 1858. 

* Annual of Scientific Discovery, p. 302. This is a fine example of the difficulties into 
which the plutonists fall at every new and striking discovery in a mining region. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


425 


The forges of this neighborhood, some of j r 

them very old, make blooms and rough slabs 
in Catalan tires, out of magnetic ores in the same range with 
the mine last described. The most northeasterly of this second 
zone of mines, is the Hibernia, on the top of a high hill, vari¬ 
able and averaging perhaps nine feet. The Jackson mine, half 
a mile w T est of Dover, owned by the Crane Iron Company of 
Pennsylvania, is about seven feet thick. 

Dickenson’s mine near Succasunny on the same range, a 
mile and a half from the canal, is described by H. D. Rogers in 
his report on the Geology of New Jersey. The bed dips 60° 
southeast, between quartz and feldspar gneiss in which is 
occasionally mixed a little mica and crystals of oxidulated or 
magnetic ore ; is 30 feet thick just at the entrance but averages 
about 12 feet; and furnishes three varieties of ore, blue ore next 
the foot wall, reddish ore next to the hanging wall, and sparry 
ore in separated veins between the permanent bed and hanging 
■wall. In the case of one such vein of sparry ore twenty-two 
inches thick, there are three inches of rock between it and the 
red ore. The ore is granular, approaching the octahedron, and 
sometimes compact, and makes fine iron. Mr. Rogers reports 
about 1,500 tons per annum mined during the five years 
previous to his visit. Mr. Hodge in 1849 reports 800 tons 
per month sent to a number of furnaces in Pennsylvania. 

Byram’s mine, a little off the line of the last to the south¬ 
east, has been extensively wrought, and its ore sent off in every 
direction. The bed is 8 to 12 feet thick. 

On the next range to the northwest the mines have been in 
many cases abandoned, not from any lack of ore however. 
The Mount Hope Blue mine is on a large and important bed, 
the old workings of which are at least 100 feet in depth by 
several hundred on a level. The Mount Hope mine is on the 
same high hill, four miles from the canal. The Teabo mine 
adjoins it towards the canal and has for many years supplied 
the Rockaway works. Its ore is columnar, somewhat mixed 
with actinolite and quartz, but one of the heaviest and richest 
ores of the district, better adapted for the bloomary than the 
hicrh-blast furnace, but mixing well with the brown hematites. 
The bed is more regular than usual, from 8 to 10 feet thick and 
stands nearly vertical. The Mount Pleasant mine on the 


426 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


« 


same line was wrought within half a mile of the canal 220 feet 
below the meadow level when Mr. Stanton took it. Prof. 
Rogers describes it as averaging 8 feet thick, varying rapidly 
between great extremes, the ore occurring in fact in pods, 
between a regular wall of hard light-colored feldspar upon the 
lower side, and a hanging wall of chlorite and mica slate. One 
of the southwest galleries was crossed by a quartz dyke 14 feet 
in thickness beyond which the vein was recovered upheaved 
many feet to the southeast and in great confusion. The ore is 
excellent; some granular and some compact and columnar. 
The Irondale mines belonging to the Sussex Iron Company 
seem to be in the same range, two miles west of Dover and half 
a mile southwest of the canal. The Stanhope furnaces are nine 
miles further w r est and used the ore. The largest of several 
parallel veins is about 20 feet thick; the dip about 45°; and the 
principal workings near the surface. The ore which has a cold¬ 
short tendency, like most of the ores above described, is sent as 
far as the Lehigh furnaces, and adits have been driven into the 
veins at water level to meet a growing demand. 

The Oxford furnace ores are black magnetic from 45 to 60 
per cent, and in the immediate vicinity of the furnace, w r hich 
was built and blown in March 1743. The ores lie in grani¬ 
toid gneiss, conformably, in two principal and very variable 
beds, separated here and there by parallel beds of rock, as in 
double and triple coal beds, so that the whole thickness of ore is 
not always taken out. Several faults also heave the beds side¬ 
ways and cause fractures and squeezes, one of which makes 
almost a semicircle. The adjacent strata or rather certain beds 
are full of crystals of magnetic ore replacing or associated with 
their hornblende crystals. The ore itself is here as elsewhere 
both massive and fragmentary and the massive ore is always 
refractory but makes an excellent iron. The forge pig bears a 
high character. Another bed of ore was opened in 1847 quar¬ 
ter of a mile from the furnace, one lens-shaped mass of which 
w r as 16 feet thick this “ blue magnetic vein” is now reported 
by Mr. Scranton 22 feet thick and making good bar iron ; the 
Harrison vein being red-short and the black magnetic vein 
makes the best car-wheel iron. In 1858 another large bed was 


9 J. T. Hodge, 1849. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES IN NEW JERSEY. 


427 


opened, and the sales of ore to other works __ 
are over 1,000 tons a month. 1 New Jerse y- 

The Andover mine, in the same range with and twenty miles 
northeast of the Oxford, seven miles north from the canal at 
Waterloo (the old Andover forge village) and about a mile north¬ 
east of Andover village cuts through the southwest end of a long 
gneiss ridge (No. I) surrounded by limestone (No. II.) The 
ridge is cleft into several prongs and in the northwestern cleft 
the principal bed of ore is seen dipping ‘60° east-southeast be¬ 
tween gneiss walls from 30 to 56 feet apart for a hundred yards 
along the open quarry and 20 feet deep at the upper end (in 
1849). 3 The bed is traced by trial shafts across the hill north¬ 
east. At the southwest end it is very poor, being a mere bed of 
slate charged with iron ore. Elsewhere it is a mass of light 
reddish ore in which as in a paste are embedded octahedral 
crystals of magnetic oxide. The ore as it comes out, paste and 
all, analyzes peroxide iron 70.72 (iron 49.50), silicious matter 
insoluble after fusion with carbonate soda 28.51, alumina 1.14, 
carbonate lime 0.57, manganese a trace. The red paste might 
he taken for peroxide of iron, hut it is generally of too light 
color, assuming when ground a pink tinge. Before the blow¬ 
pipe on charcoal it is fusible with difficulty into a bead, which 
is magnetic. With soda it indicates manganese, hut with borax 
the reaction of manganese seems to he overcome by that of 
iron, the glass being red then yellow while hot and colorless 
cold. When the powder is heated it becomes of a brown color, 
as does that of manganese spar. I could detect no zinc with the 
blow-pipe. I have some fine crystals of the mineral which ap¬ 
pear, however, as if they might he pseudomorphs of the mag¬ 
netic oxide of iron. Plates of specular iron ore are also im¬ 
bedded in this paste, and the whole mass passes into the per¬ 
oxide, which is found in compact layers in the vein as pure and 
compact as the peroxide of the Iron mountain of Missouri.* 

In the midst of this great vein, somewhat southeast of the 


1 Bulletin A. I. A. p. 84, note 44. * J- T. Hodge, 

a In March 1847 this ore bed was examined by Dr. Palmer, R. C. Taylor and Ab. S. 
Hewitt and bought by Cooper, Hewitt & Co. It is now in 1858 more shaley than it was. 
The mass above water level is described as having been “all oxide of iron” (for 50 or 
GO feet above water level), in which the zinc was scarcely noticed and the iron made 
was particularly pure. But in reaching the plane of underground drainage the heavy 
sulpliurets come in, as in the Polk county mines in Tennessee and elsewhere. 


428 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


middle of it, is a body of magnetic oxide of iron from 10 to 12 
feet in thickness pursuing the same course. This is a very dense 
ore and of uniform character; its color is a bluish black, and 
dispersed through it are extremely small crystals of a yellowish 
brown color, which resemble yellow blende. But with the 
microscope they are found to be of a cinnamon yellow, and too 
bright and clear for this mineral. I was not able to procure 
enough of the substance to determine what it was. This ore 
effervesces in the acids; and its composition I found was as 
follows: Peroxide iron 76.99 (iron 53.89), silica 8.04, carbonate 
lime 8.14, carb magnesia 3.74, alumina 1.78, manganese a trace. 
I have a specimen from some part of the vein much resem¬ 
bling the great mass of the red ore in appearance, but in which 
the parts containing the magnetic crystals proves to be a red 
steatite, similar to that of the Indian pipestone, and with it are 
veins of greenish white steatite. From the peculiarities of these 
ores they are worthy of a most thorough examination.* 

Other parallel veins occur in the adjoining “ swales,” but of 
inferior importance. At the northern extremity of this mine 
still another prong and cleft laps by it on the western side, and 
in this is a wide vein of inferior ore and garnet rock lying in 
gneiss and limestone filled with small grains of colophonite. 
In the garnet rock I discovered a trace of tin, but on analysis by 
Dr. Wolcott Gibbs it proved but a mere trace. Its composition 
is peroxide iron 30.92 (iron 21.64), silica 35.32, lime 30.21, 
alumina 2.81, oxide of tin 0.18. Probably no better combina¬ 
tion could be found for a flux for the richer ores than this ; but 
care would be required to select it free from the sulpliuret of 
iron, which prevails in some parts of the vein. Seams of galena 
are met with here, which near the surface promised to be 
abundant; the quantity however diminishes in sinking on the 
vein. In small spots it was nearly a foot thick, the galena very 
pure and containing, I found, 4 lbs. troy of silver to the ton 
of galena. Fine crystals of garnet, troostite, augite, etc., are 
obtained at this vein. Altogether it is by far the most interest¬ 
ing and perhaps the most important vein of the mining region.* 
It is said that during the last century this ore was worked for 
steel, for the manufacture of which it proved well adapted. 
The bar iron made from it too bore a high reputation for tougli- 

* J. T. Hodge. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


429 


ness. An old blast furnace still stands in 
Andover where the ore was smelted and the eW ^ eise y' 
puddling furnaces and forge are seen on the bank of the 
canal at Waterloo. The Andover Iron Company was formerly 
a large and enterprising body and carried on a very ex¬ 
tensive business for the times. It was broken up at last, 
the members being dispersed in all parts of the world, and 
there remained none to claim the mine or pay the taxes. It 
was wholly neglected when in 1847 by the perseverance of 
Mr. Hewitt a title was obtained to it at an expense of $6,000. 
He reopened the mine and with Peter Cooper, Esq., of Hew 
York and his son Edward Cooper, built the large furnaces 
at Philipsburg to run with these ores. In the summer and 
fall of 1848 mining operations were extensively carried on, 
from 500 to 800 tons a month being sent down to the canal to 
be transported to the furnaces at Philipsburg. 3 

The ores consumed in these Philipsburg furnaces have been 
obtained chiefly from the Andover mine, nearly two hundred 
thousand tons having already been consumed. The ores of the 
Roseville, Dickerson, Allen, Hibernia, Irondale and Pingwood 
mines have ak) been used alone, as well as mixed with Andover 
ores. At first, under the impression that Andover ore would 
not work well alone, it was mixed with hematite ore, in different 
proportions; but it was soon ascertained that the Andover ore 
worked better and made a superior iron to the mixture, and the 
hematite was consequently abandoned. 4 The charge is stated by 
Professor Kitchell to be as follows: Andover ores (specular), 2.25 
tons, coal 1.75 tons, limestone 0.25 ton. The iron is similar to 
that produced from the franklinite ore, being highly crystalline, 
and in its fracture having a bright metallic lustre, resembling 
that of antimony. A large proportion has a foliated structure, 
being crystallized in laminae; another variety has a fibrous 
structure, the fibres radiating from the centre to the outside of 
the pig; and another variety lias a granular structure, the 
grains being coarse and crystalline. It is considered, for many 
purposes, superior to iron manufactured from magnetic ores, or 
account of its crystalline structure, caused by the presence of 
manganese and a more intimate union of the carbon and iron. 


8 J. T. Hodge, MSS. 1849. 


4 Kitchell, p. 23. 


430 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


The charge of Iioseville mine magnetic ore is 3 tons, coal 2.5, 
limestone 0.3. The small proportion of limestone required is 
owing to the presence of carbonate of lime mixed with the ore. 
The iron is red-short, but it is soft and very fine grained, and is 
well adapted to foundry purposes. 

The charge of Ringwood mine magnetic ore (assorted) is 1.75 
tons, coal 1.75, limestone 0.65. 

The charge of Dickerson mine magnetic ore is 2 tons, coal 2, 
limestone 0.8. The iron is cold-short, even when mixed with 
one-fourth Andover ore, but makes a good foundry iron. 

The charge of Allen mine magnetic ore is 2.25 tons, coal 2, 
limestone 0.5. The iron is slightly inclined to red-short, but 
makes a good forge iron, and when mixed with one-fourth 
Andover ore, produces a superior article, equal to the Andover. 

The charge of Hibernia mine magnetic ore is 2 tons, coal 2, 
limestone 0.4. Iron similar to that produced from the Allen 
ore. 6 

The great Andover vein has not been found on the lands of 
the Crane Company northeast of the Cooper and Hewitt pro¬ 
perty, but the garnet vein has been found, but in too lean a form 
to work. 6 

The Glendon mine about three miles southwest of the Andover 
mine occurs near the junction of the gneiss (sandstone Ho. I) 
and limestone (Ho. II). It shows a very open ore in a bed 8 
feet thick, falling to 4 feet in the shafting, and much debased 
with carbonate of lime. Gypsum also accompanies it. 7 

Other smaller ore beds are known in the Scots mountain 
and marble mountain range, and many small leaders have been 
found on hills near Waterloo. 8 

It is impossible not to recognize in the above descriptions the 
features of sedimentary local deposits of peroxide of iron at the 
base of the palseozoic or Lower Silurian limestones and in or on 
the previously deposited sands and slates; which at that time were 
horizontal and perhaps near the surface of the air; perhaps in 

6 “In the use of the above ores, the following results have been obtained : 1. Ores 
containing apatite (phosphate of lime), produce a cold-short iron. 2. Ores containing 
iron pyrites (sulphuret of iron), produce a red-short iron, but suitable for foundry pur¬ 
poses. 3. Ores containing manganese produce a hard crystalline iron, which is neither 
cold nor red-short, but of great tenacity. 4. Ores 1 and 2, or 1 and 3, or 2 and 3, mixed 
in suitable proportions, produce a neutral iron, suitable for forge purposes.’ 

• T 8 J. T. Hodge. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


431 


the air; previous to the deeper submergence 
during which the limestones were deposited. 


New Jersey. 


Just north of Philipsburg, New Jersey (writes Prof. Hodge), there is a very curi¬ 
ous locality of specular ore, unreliable in quantity but of great purity and its mode 
of occurrence novel. It is in place on the steep crest of Marble mountain in what 
I can call nothing else than blotches incrusting the massive steatitic slates and occa¬ 
sionally in strata running a few feet into the slates and disappearing. In the drift 
are great quantities of the ore; hundreds of dollars’ worth might be profitably 
gathered up; they are also spread over the fields to the south as far as the Dela¬ 
ware ; I saw twelve tons of boulders taken out of one hole. Could the ore be found 


in quantity, the purity and locality would give it great value.— Jan. 11, 1857. 

The most thorough discussion of an iron mine region in 
America is that by Prof. Kitchell of the mining district of 
northern New Jersey in his Second Annual Geological Report 
from page 146 to page 230 illustrated with maps and sections, 
mine machinery and lists of minerals found among the ores. 
He describes in succession, beginning witli the northwestern- 
most belt of Pochunck, Pomple hill, Andover and Alamuche 
mountains, and Yernon and Wallkill valleys:— 


Pochunck mine, Franklin mine, Tar mine, Chapin mine, 

Simpson “ Stirling •* Andover mine, Brookfield mine, 

Then the mines of the Wawayanda, Wallkill, Hopatcong, and Schooley’s mountain 
range as follows:— 

Sherman, 

Ford & Scofield, 

Weldon, 

Duffee, 

Hurdtown, 


Noland, 

Roseville, 

Silver, 

Haggarty, 

Stanhope, 


Lawrence, 


Wawayanda, 

Green, 

Williams, 

Edsall, 

Ogden, 

V ulcan. 

Then the Mount Olive mines, as follows:— 

Osborn, Drake, 

Hilts. 

Then the Ringwood mines, as follows:— 

Oak, Caler, Blue, 

Peters, New Wood, Mule, 

Then the Mount Hope mines, as follows:— 

Mount Hope Blue, Allen, 

Teabo Vein, Richard, 

Brannin, Mount Pleasant, 

South Vein, Huff & Burwell, 

Mount Hope tunnel, Harvey & North river, 

Hickory Hill, Corwin, 

Elizabeth, Sterling, 

Teabo, Hubbard, 

In northern New Jersey in 1857 the following forge bloomaries used the follow¬ 
ing ores named after the mines or openings—sometimes many on one vein, as it 
passes across adjoining properties each of which has its mine. Ringwood (F 26) 


Stevens, 


Hard, 

Cannon. 

Jackson, 

Randall Hill, 

Mellen, 

Byram, 

Brotherton, 

Dickerson, 

King, 

Logan, 


Marsh. 


Splitrock, 


Hibernia, 

Lower Wood, 
Glendon, 

Willis, 

Beach, 
Beachglen, 
Kitchell & Muir, 
Swede. 


\ 


432 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


and Long Pond (F 27), use Ringwood ore similar to the Arnold ore in northern 
New York, from a bed on which are twenty-two distinct openings. Bloomingdale 
(F 29) use Ringwood ore, 10 miles northwest. Smith’s (F 30) uses Ringwood, 
Allan, Byram (one mile from Allan), Succasunna, separately or mixed.—Charlotten- 
burg (F 31) uses Hibernia 8 miles SSW, Ogden 9 miles W, mixed. The ores 
in this neighborhood are so occupied now by the Pennsylvania iron-works that it 
is difficult for the neighboring forges to get them.—Turner’s, Stockholm, Methodist 
and Herringbone (F 32, 33, 34, 35) all use Ringwood magnetic, 16 miles NE, 
Stockholm 2J NE, Allan 16 miles south.—Windham (F 36) uses Ringwood ore 
with a separator.—Cantistear (F 61) uses Ringwood, Allan’s, Mount Hope ores, 
mixing the two varieties of Ringwood—Decker’s Sparta (F 62) uses Ogden (sepa¬ 
rated) 6 miles east.—Stony Brook (F 37) uses Mount Hope 15 miles SW, Hibernia 
sometimes, 8 miles west, or Ringwood 17 NE, simple or mixed.—Decker’s Rock- 
away (F 38) uses some Hibernia, mostly Mount Hope, mixed.—Dixon’s Rockaway 
(F 39) uses Allan and a little Hibernia.—Powerville (F 40) uses Hibernia, with a 
separator, 2£ tons making 1 ton of iron.—Old Boonton (F 41) Durham (F 43) 
Rechter’s Meriden (F 46) use chiefly Allan ore.—Troy (F 42) mixes Hibernia with 
Allan making one ton out of 2£.—Stickel’s Meriden (F 45) mixes a little Beach ore 
3J SW, with Allan and rarely Hibernia 2J W alone.—Beachglen (F 47) uses 
mostly Hibernia magnetic one mile north, or lately Beach ore £ west, with some 
Allan. They say here Hibernia is not improved by mixing.—Bloomary (F 49) uses 
sorted Allan 2g tons to 1 of finished bar. It is a richer ore than Hibernia. Den¬ 
mark (F 50) uses magnetic Mount Hope ore 21 miles south.—Middle (F 51) uses 
Allan ore 3 miles SSE, Mount Hope 2 SE, mixed, some Mount Pleasant 3£ SSW. 
“There is a vein of hematite half a mile south.”—Walley (F 53) uses Succasunna 
4 miles south, half mile NE of General Dickerson’s mine. Lower Longwood (F 54) 
uses Allan 6 miles SE, some Hopewell 9 miles NW depended in 1857 on Welden 
mine 3 miles NW.—Upper Longwood (F 55) uses Allan.—Hardbargain (F 56) 
uses Allan, some little Ogden, a little Mount Pleasant and Irondale.—Petersburg 
(F 57) uses Allan, sometimes Ringwood and Ogden.—Sweedeland (F 58) use3 
Allan, used in 1856 mostly Ogden, some Succasunna, formerly Mount Pleasant, 
mix when possible also uses Ford ore 2 miles southwest.—Russia (F 59) 
uses Oakhill magnetic 3 miles NNW, a new mine, 200 yards north of the 
Ogden, the ore of which is approved and will be used unmixed; formerly used 
Vulcan-head ore a quarter of a mile SW of Ogden.—Hopewell (F 60) used in 1856 
Oakhill, formerly Ogden.—Eagle (F 63) uses magnetic ore from four openings close 
together a mile east.—Morris (F 65) uses Vulcan-head magnetic ore (separated in 
the works) 4 miles east, three openings.—Columbia (F 66) uses magnetic Dickerson 
ore, and ore from the Glendon Company’s mines in Morris county (2^ ore to 1 iron). 
Roseville, Lockwmod and New Andover (F 67, 68, 69) use Dickerson ore (50 per 
cent, Succasunna), 8 miles S.E. and 4 miles west of Dover. Shippenport (F 70) 
uses “ blue ore ” from Hibernia and Byrom mines and red ore from Waterloo. Has 
a separator cylinder with 500 magnets and makes a ton of iron from 2 tons cleaned 
ore from 2£ to 3 crude ore.—Bartleysville (F 72) uses Mount Pleasant ore, 3 tons to 
1 iron.—Welsh’s old Petersburg (F73) uses Dickerson’s ore 8 miles ENE, 2i tons to 
1 of rivet iron, 2£ to 1 of boiler iron.—Budd’s (F 74, 75) use their own ore close by. 1 

1 B. S. Lyman and J. Lesley Jun., in Bulletin of Amer. Iron Assoc., pages 92, 93, 
July, 1857. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


433 


Entering Pennsylvania the magnetic ores of _ _ 

,, & ® -] . -ii Pennsylvania, 

the primary, azoic or huronian system dwindle 

to a shadow. The reputation of this State for iron has resulted 
more from the energetic, persevering German use, for a century of 
years, of what ores do exist, than from any extraordinary wealth of 
iron of which she can boast; certainly not from any actual preemi¬ 
nence of mineral wealth over her sister States. New York, New 
Jersey, Virginia and North Carolina are far more liberally en¬ 
dowed by nature in this respect than she. The immense magnetic 
deposits of New York and New Jersey almost disappear just after 
entering her limits. The brown hematite beds of her great valley 
will not seem extraordinary to one who has become familiar 
with those of New York, Massachusetts and Vermont, Virginia 
and Tennessee. Her fossil ore out-crop is not more extensive 
than lean and uncertain compared with that of the South. And 
the carbonate and hematized carbonate out-crops in and under 
her coal measures will hardly bear comparison with those of the 
grander outspread of the same formations in Ohio, Kentucky 
and western Virginia. But her people came from the land of 
the Stiickofen, the fatherland of mineralogy and metallurgy; 
and came, a people of peaceful, thrifty and industrious habits, to 
settle midway between the rigors of the North and the enerva¬ 
tion of the South, to illustrate a free soil with the dignities and 
successes of free labor. 

The primary ore of New Jersey crosses the Delaware below 
Easton. At the old Lehigh-hill mine, now abandoned, two and 
a quarter miles south of Easton, the rock is a mixture of quartz 
and feldspar with occasionally a little epidote ; on the southern 
side of the ridge are talc slates. The vein lies in contact with 
syenites consisting largely of green sahlite. The ore is very 
compact and dips northwest at the old abandoned mine. 1 
Several small veins pass up the valley of Durham creek past 
the anthracite furnaces. The quantity is nevertheless considera¬ 
ble, but the mines remained for many years unwrought, owing 
to the neighborhood of the scattered brown hematite beds of 
the Lehigh valley. The entrance to the magnetic ore mine is 
within 300 yards of the two Durham anthracite stacks; the 
average width of the vein it works, 6 feet; strike northeast, dip 


1 Boy6 in 5th Annual Report, p. 39. 
28 


/ 



434 


PART II.-—DIVISION II. 


southeast. The vein is traceable a mile and a half and is 
drifted in, at three points, for 800, 200 and 1300 feet. The old 
mine on the top of the hill south of Durham creek on the old 
Philadelphia road was abandoned when Prof. Boye reported in 
1841. 2 The belt of ore to which it belongs may be followed 
along the range of Durham hills and in the furnace valley for 
four miles. The furnaces use with this ore black hematite ore 
from a vein on the New Jersey shore opposite, and brown 
hematite from nests 500 yards, 2 miles and 3^- miles west of the 
stacks, others being known to exist all the way to Hellerstown, 
Trexlerville and Beading. The absence of any considerable 
body of magnetic ore in this region is however forcibly illustra¬ 
ted by the fact that the numerous great Lehigh anthracite fur¬ 
naces have purchased mines in New Jersey, and bring their 
ores from that distance to mix with their brown hematites; 
while the furnaces of the Schuylkill and Susquehanna all get 
their magnetic ore to mix from one mine, the Cornwall south 
of Lebanon. 

On the northernmost of the two primary hills, east of the Saucon, and about a 
mile northeast of Hellerstown, a vein of magnetic iron ore shows itself in several 
places, though the quantity of ore here is probably not great. It is much mixed 
with quartz, though we obtained some tolerably pure specimens. A syenitic dyke, 
composed chiefly of sahlite and hornblende accompanies the ore, and seems to have 
been the chief object of attention to those who have undertaken raining here. 
Brown argillaceous iron ore shows itself on the surface in some abundance, on the 
north side of this hill, near the junction of the primary rocks and the limestone. 
The appearances of ore are promising on Dillingham’s farm, and much fibrous 
hematite is found on Hartman’s, the next farm to the north. An open porous ore, 
in considerable quantity, is visible in a field on the latter place. 

Fragments of magnetic iron ore occur in many places on the surface of the bold 
hill of primary rocks, south of the Lehigh, at Bethlehem, where some search has 
been made for it by digging. Southwest of Shimersville, near the east end of the 
same ridge, a vein of green sahlite, which has been mistaken for iron ore, shows 
itself near the summit of a hill. Close to this spot, some true iron ore has been 
found by us, the source of which is probably a little north of the sahlite. Epidote, 
mixed with iron ore, also occurs here. Further westward, near the summit of the 
same ridge, magnetic iron ore in a talcose rock is visible, near Shuber’s, three miles 
from Bethlehem; it has not been dug for. The same variety of ore, of excellent 
quality, is found on the surface, near the top of the northern primary ridge south 
of Allentown, at a spot a little west of the Philadelphia road. A less magnetic 
variety is met with on the northern slope of the hill, a mile to the east of the road. 
Further to the southwest, the magnetic iron ore shows itself in the primary hill, 
three miles southeast from Metztown, the spot being a little west of the Philadel 


2 Fifth Annual Report, p. 39. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


435 


phia road. It is on the southern side of the second pri- Pennsylvania, 
mary ridge from the north, on lands of Messrs. Trine and 

Peter Fegly, the line dividing their tracts passing through the mine. The ore 
occurs in three regular veins, dipping with the adjoining strata, at an angle of 50° 
to the south-southeast. The southern vein is about a foot and a half thick ; north 
of it occurs a stratum of rock (gneiss), eight feet across, in contact with which is 
the middle vein, separated near its outcrop into two branches, which at a little depth 
unite into one vein; this is bounded on the north by a stratum of rock about four 
feet in thickness, and directly in contact with this, is the third or northern vein, 
having a thickness of two feet. The rock which incloses these several veins, is a 
coarse, regularly stratified gneiss, a mixture chiefly of quartz and feldspar. 

Some miles to the south of the above, magnetic iron ore occurs on the border of 
Colebrookdale and Hereford townships, in the Mount Pleasant iron mines. In the 
northeastern excavation, belonging to Isaac Berthou, the ore occurs between sye- 
nitic rocks, and is itself a mixture of rotten syenite and magnetic oxide. It is 
worked open to the air, in a drift ten or twelve feet wide, ranging east of north. 
The dip here is 65° and a little south of east. This mine, in the course of seven 
weeks of active operations, has yielded seven hundred tons of rich ore. The 
quality of the ore is however variable. A few hundred yards more to the south¬ 
west, is the mine owned by John Landis; it includes two large excavations, one of 
them twenty feet wide and sixty or seventy feet long, and sixty feet deep, pursuing 
apparently a regular vein or bed parallel with the strata. The ore removed at 
various times amounts to about three thousand tons. The second excavation bears 
a little north of east from the above. Two other excavations, on property belong¬ 
ing to Peter Disher, occur about two hundred yards west of south from these. 
Here the bed has a nearly east and west direction, and may probably be the same 
which contains the mines just previously spoken of. This ore, more compact than 
that of the other mines, is stated to have made a rather red-short iron. The excava¬ 
tions are on a less scale than the largest one on Landis’ place. 

It would be important at the present day to ascertain, if possible, the causes which 
led to the abandonment of the magnetic iron ores of the region under review. The 
ore which supplied the old Durham furnace, in Bucks county, now long neglected, 
is said to have made an iron of excellent quality. Should it appear that a deficiency 
of good fuel, not the want of ore, was the difficulty, we may hope to see these local¬ 
ities once more resorted to, now that anthracite coal, so easily had in this neighbor¬ 
hood, proves itself so admirably adapted for smelting those harder ores which 
require a disproportioned expenditure of charcoal. 

Brown or hematitic iron ore, in various forms, is often met with, in connection 
with the sandstone and limestone embraced in the chain of the South mountains. A 
usual place for the ore is near the junction of these formations with the underlying 
primary. Ore occurs in this position, near the border of the limestone, at the north¬ 
ern foot of the Lehigh hills, in many spots. Several excavations have been made 
about a mile in a direct line from South Easton, on the premises of John Bess. One 
of these was by a shaft about three hundred yards from his house. It is fifty-five 
feet deep, the first ten feet being through diluvium, the next ten feet through ore 
and ore ground, and the remainder of the distance through clay. Two other holes, 
each forty-two feet deep,' were dug about three hundred yards from the above. In 
one of these, the covering of diluvium was fourteen feet thick, below which 
occurs the ore. The mining was done by the proprietors of the South Easton fur¬ 
nace, who paid an ore rent to the owner of thirty-seven and a half cents per ton. 


436 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


The geological situation of this ore is probably upon the sandstone, F. I. An unsuc¬ 
cessful excavation was made near the top of the hill, where gneiss and syenite, and 
other primary rocks were struck. About three miles westward from South Easton, a 
mine has been opened, at Jacob Woodring’s, in a hollow between two spurs of the 
primary chain. It was not wrought at the time of our examination. The shaft here 
is said to be ninety feet deep, passing through diluvium and clay for fifty-five feet, 
before any ore was found. The ore is moderately rich, but contains some manga¬ 
nese. The limestone shows itself on the surface, about three hundred yards north 
of the ore. Westward of these localities, surface signs of ore are abundant, as at 
Ihrie’s and Brotzman’s, half a mile south of the Lehigh. At Brotzman’s, where 
some manganese is associated with the ore, the diggings were made probably too 
high in the side of the hill, being apparently outside of the edge of the limestone. 
The ore here is rough and sandy, and contains compact black oxide of manganese 
in some abundance. A little hill, further west, on the same form, lying within the 
limestone, shows a much better ore on the surface. On Richards’s farm, in the 
same range as Brotzman’s, but further west, surface ore is quite abundant, some of 
it being fibrous hematite. The next farm westward, presents the same indications. 
At the period of our exploration, the Lehigh Crane Iron Company, whose works 
are situated on the Lehigh, three miles above Allentown, were about to commence 
6ome shafts on Richards’s farm. They have since, it is said, purchased Ihrie’s, so 
that it is now probable that the ores of this neighborhood will be well investigated. 
Above Richards’s, the primary formation approaches the river, cuts out the lime¬ 
stone, and consequently, the ore. But the limestone again showing itself higher 
up the river, a little ore has been dug above Bethlehem bridge, where, however, 
it is probably exhausted. Pursuing the same line to the southwest, we find an iron 
mine (Swartz’s), at present neglected, about three-fourths of a mile southwest 
of Emaus. At this spot there is only one mine hole, about forty feet deep. 
Smelted alone, this ore made a cold-short iron, and was therefore usually mingled 
with other ores, principally with that from Breinig’s mine. In some of the speci¬ 
mens found here, no manganese could be detected, though some of the ore has a 
manganesian aspect. Its geological position is in diluvium, lying near the border 
of the limestone. 

The next locality of importance, is the old iron mine belonging to Oley furnace, 
nearly two miles northwest from Fredensburg. At this spot the ore was dug from 
immediately under an outcrop of the sandstone F. I, the digging running parallel 
with it for more than a hundred yards, and being eighteen or twenty feet deep, and 
eight or ten feet wide. This mine, now abandoned, furnished us some specimens 
from the side wall of the excavation ; these are argillaceous and laminated, and of a 
purplish red color. A shaft unites the main excavation with another nearly under 
the first, having about the same direction, but descending more perpendicularly. 
This latter mine is from three to five feet wide ; the wall is of primary rock, chiefly 
feldspathic and hornblendic gneiss, but sometimes entirely micaceous, and it con¬ 
tains, in certain places, magnetic and micaceous iron ore. The proprietors of Olnev 
furnace propose reopening this old mine, having nearly completed a tunnel now six 
hundred feet long, intended to reach the lower excavation. The rocks passed 
through in the tunnel, are gneiss, syenite, hornblende, and micaceous slates. 

On Pine creek, in Pike township, some diggings have been made for ore, about 
half a mile southeast from Lobach’s mill. The ore has the aspect of a talcose slate, 
charged with the oxide of iron; it has a laminated or rather a fibrous structure. 
There is a rather large excavation at Boyerstown, belonging to Daniel Feglie. At 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 437 

the time it was visited, the opening was filled with water. Pennsylvania. 
The rock accompanying the ore is a light green soft variety 

of slate, dipping east. The ore itself is dull black, and contains many crystals of iron 
pyrites ; it is said to have made a cold-short iron, and to contain copper, of whiclr 
however, no trace was visible. A short distance west of south from the above, occurs 
another mine, belonging to John Rhodder, where the ore is more compact. Both 
these localities are connected probably with the middle secondary red sandstone 
formation. 3 

The following are Dr. Rogers’s analyses of the magnetic ores of Trine & Fegly’s 
mine, three miles southeast from Mitztown, Berks county, A, and from one mile 
southeast of Hellerstown, Lehigh county, B :— 

Magnetic oxide,. A. 88.92 .B. 85.60 

Silica,. 10.60. 12.60 

Water,. 0.20 1.25 

Alumina, i. a trace. a trace. 

Pure iron,. 65.52 63.00 

Hampton charcoal furnace (E 48) situated in the prolonga¬ 
tion of the Durham hills 12 miles southwest of Allentown, mixes 
a black, somewhat magnetic, neutral oxide from Barto’s banks 
in Washington township, 7 miles to the southwest of it, with 
the brown hematites around it to the north, and makes a first 
class car-wheel iron. Mary Ann furnace (E 49) 8 miles south¬ 
west of Trexlerstown, also mixes with its brown hematites one- 
fourth magnetic from some vein within a couple of miles. 
Oley furnace (E 50), 2 miles east of Pricetown, mixes mag¬ 
netic ore from Zinnor’s hank at Rothruckville, 12 miles distant. 
Mount Laurel furnace (once Alsace, E 52) gets a grey magnetic 
ore like the Cornwall from Wheatfield’s banks 7 miles beyond 
the Schuylkill, west of Beading. 

The ore at Daniel Fegle’s Boyerstown hank Colebrookdale 
township Berks county Pennsylvania is described by Boye as a 
very different looking ore from that of the Cornwall mine. Dr. 
R. E. Rogers describes the specimen he analyzed as dark dull 
grey approaching black, with glimmering crystalline points, 
powder black; slightly effervesces with acids, contains green 
chloritic clay, acts on the needle, lies in red shale near the con¬ 
tact with primary rocks of the South mountain ; composition 
86.67 magnetic oxide, 7.72 silica etc. 2.60 magnesia, 1.36 alu¬ 
mina, 0.80 carbonate lime = 62.22 pure iron. Boye says that 
the Middle Red sandstone [New Red] covers the primaries from 
Rhoad’s mill on Ironstone creek going eastward to Boyerstown, 
without the intervention of Sandstone I or Limestone II. The 


8 Boye’s Report, 1841, as published by Rogers in the Fifth Annual Report, p. 40. 












438 


rAKT II.-DIVISION II. 


rock next tlie Fegle ore is a soft green slate dipping east from 
the ore, the excavation running nortli-northeast. The ore is dull 
black containing many crystals of iron pyrites ; in one piece ot 
ore was found a piece of crystalline limestone. Green chlorite 
slate hounds the ore on the west also. The ore makes cold-short 
iron (like the Cornwall); no copper was seen. Sandstone dips 
25° west of north in a very small hill west of north of the mine, 
and north of this hill rises a high hill covered with earth and 
pieces of granite and syenite. Rhodder’s mine is just west of 
south of Fegle’s and has a compacter ore associated with red 
sandstone. The hills to the north, northeast and northwest of 
Boyerstown are all primary (mostly white gneiss of soft decom¬ 
posing feldspar and quartz, alternating with a syenitic rock of the 
same feldspar and crystals of hornblende) covered with fertile 
soil. 4 

The Warwick ore near Morgantown Berks county Pennsyl¬ 
vania was thus described in Dr. Rogers’s analysis : black, metal¬ 
lic rather dull, rather cavernous, cell walls coated with ferru¬ 
ginous and talcose matter and perfect crystals of oxidulated iron 
in rhombic dodecahedrons, magnetic, polar, composition 97.61 
magnetic oxide, 1.69 silica etc. a trace of alumina, no titanic 
acid, = 70.90 pure iron. 

The Cornwall mine is an open quarry on the south side of a 
low hill at the north foot of which lie the Cornwall furnaces and 
from the top of which can be seen Lebanon six miles north, 
with its four anthracite stacks. The ore is nearly black, dull 
with brilliant points, somewhat cellular, the cells containing 
small octaliedrals of ore and a whitish asbestiform mineral, mag¬ 
netic, polar, analyzing : 98.00 magnetic oxide, 0.84 alumina, 0.24 
silica, etc., making 70.34 pure iron, according to Dr. Rogers ; 5 
but Prof. Boye found in one specimen of the furnace slag from 
this ore 3.80 and in another 12.5 magnesia , showing that the 
original gangue must have been magnesian, unless we are to 
suppose the whole of such a percentage to come from a mag¬ 
nesian limestone flux. In this mine are found large specimens 
of rich copper ore, a metal seemingly widely distributed through 
the mass, as it is at the Warwick mine, and reported to be some¬ 
times at Fegly’s Boyerstown mine. This circumstance taken 


4 Extract in 1859 from MSS. Report of 1838. 


6 Fourth An Rep. p. 213. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


439 


in connection with two others, viz. that the _ 

New Red Sandstone is the home of the enns Y vama. 
copper ores of this region, and that other beds of iron ore 
(not magnetic indeed) occur at other points of the geograph¬ 
ical limits of this formation, lend strong assurance to those 
who explain these great masses of ore as of middle secondary 
and not of primary age. But we must remember that copper 
and iron occur together in the subsilurian rocks of Canada, 
Tennessee and Virginia, of an older date than that of the 
Cornwall slates, and moreover at Cornwall the Lower Silurian 
Limestone has at length been found walling the ore, as it does in 
the New York beds of hematites. We need only consider the 
presence of the New Red and its Trap to have afforded the 
needful conditions for the change of a hematite bed of Potsdam 
age into magnetic ore. This may have been effected by the 
chemical character of the New Red waters. 

The same grey magnetic ore of Cornwall appears west of the 
Susquehanna, according to specimens sent for analysis to Prof. 
Boye. Georgianna furnace (E 64) used at one time magnetic 
ore from Dillsburg, York county, eight miles south-southeast of 
Meclianicsburg, but abandoned it for Cornwall ore. Chestnut 
Grove furnace (E 69) half way between Carlisle and Gettys¬ 
burg, in the South mountains, has a magnetic ore mine one mile 
east and mixes with it one-fourth brown hematite. Carlisle 
furnace (E TO) five miles southeast of Carlisle at the north foot 
of the South mountain, pays a dollar a ton for magnetic ore from 
a vein opened six miles to the east-southeast of it. Cumberland 
furnace (E 74) at the north foot of the South mountain 11 
miles from Shippensburg, uses the Dillstown black magnetic 
oxide although it comes from 13 miles due east of it. 6 

The chromiferous and titaniferous iron ores of the Penn- 
sylvania-Maryland State line upon the Susquehanna river are 
described on page 171 of Rogers’s Final Report, vol. i. in con¬ 
nection with the belt of Serpentine rocks in which they occur.* 
Two principal mines about 150 feet deep, a little west of the 
Horseshoe Ford of the East Branch of the Octorara, have 
yielded several thousand tons per annum and in fact furnish 
most of the chromate of iron exported or consumed at home. 


« Bulletin A. I. A. 1858, pp. 84, 85. 


* See page 413 above. 


440 


PART n.-DIVISION II. 


The chief vein strikes northeast and southwest dipping 45° 
northwest, and has been pursued 300 feet, irregularly opening 
to 20 feet and shutting down to nothing, and throwing off 
branches, some of which return. In four or five localities along 
this serpentine belt commencing near the Horseshoe and ending 
three miles from the Susquehanna, titaniferous iron ore is found, 
but very little mined; some hundred tons of birdseye iron ore 
have been taken out near the Baptist meeting-house. 7 

Mr. Rogers says that a careful examination of these two belts of serpentine can¬ 
not fail to convince any observant geologist that ordinary serpentine comprehends 
both a stratified and an unstratified rock. Pure serpentine is here found only in the 
form of dykes intruded through a stratified serpentinous talcose rock, evidently a 
metamorphic clay-slate—the mica and talc formation of the Susquehanna. The 
stratified serpentinous rock seems to have been impregnated with the magnesian 
minerals during the intrusion of these veins of igneous serpentine. This is no 
place for discussing the most difficult problems with which geology has amused her¬ 
self in torturing the fancy and exercising the observing powers of her children ; but 
it is always needful in a useful book to guard the uninitiated against the over¬ 
confident assertions of the more advanced. There is as yet no certainty that ser¬ 
pentine was ever an igneous injection. On the contrary the probabilities accumulate 
that every kind of serpentine is a sedimentary or chemical precipitate. Large beds 
of it lie between sands and clays which show no trace of fiery action. Hundreds of 
feet of sands and clays (metamorphosed it is true but how is the question) are 
described by Mr. Rogers and others as “serpentinous” or suffused with serpentine 
elements; how could this occur if serpentine dykes were the origin of these 
elements ? The magnesia in the rocks and in the dykes must have a common origin 
it is true, but it is no less certain that the only conceivable common origin in such a 
case is water—aqueous deposition; the metamorphism of the rocks if not the genesis 
of the dykes must be regarded as aqueous—a slow maceration in the one case and 
infiltration in the other. If so the chromic and titaniferous iron are also aqueous 
sediments like the hematites, the carbonates, the lead and zinc of the west, and some 
at least of the gold and copper of the south; as pseudomorphic crystals and other 
aspects of these metals go to show. (See chapter on Brown Hematites). 

The most interesting question raised by these deposits is one of geological chro 
nology. The magnesian, serpentine and steatite and garnet rocks of Vermont and 
Canada holding chromic and titaniferous iron ores, are shown by the Canada survey 
to be of Palaeozoic age, the age of the upper part of the Hudson river group, our 
No. Ill, and Rogers’s Matinal Shales; whereas these Maryland State line serpen¬ 
tines, etc. are placed in the azoic system beneath the primal slates and Potsdam 

7 The mineral described by Dr. Genth. from Texas, Lancaster county, Pa. (Keller and 
Tied. Nordamer. Monatsb. iii. 487), as Nickel-Gymnite, but which Prof. Dana (System 
Mineralogy, p. 285) considers a variety of Hydrophite, I have found near Webster, Jack- 
son county, N. C., in a band of serpentine, associated with chrome iron; (this band of ser¬ 
pentine is about two or three hundred yards in width, bearing northeast and dips south). 
It occurs as an amorphous reniform incrustation on a brownish green, granular serpen¬ 
tine, in which are crystals of chrome iron. Its hardness is about 3 ; lustre resinous ; its 
color varies from an apple-green to a yellowish green, streak greenish white. In a 
matrass, yields water. B. B. nickel and silica. (Taylor, Philad., 1858). 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


441 


sandstone No. I. A. better way to show this difference of Pennsylvania, 
age perhaps would be to say that the Canada serpentines 

if properly placed should appear in Pennsylvania along the southern base of the 
Blue or Kittatinny mountain north of Harrisburg. None appear there. On the 
other hand the serpentines do appear near Easton in Pennsylvania on the back of 
an anticlinal or uplift of azoic rocks, precisely in the place where they ought to 
appear according to their position at the Maryland State line. 

Serpentine in “ large bunches ” is secluded in limestone, associated with talc* and 
other magnesian minerals in Northampton county as described by the Pennsylvania 
geologists, 8 9 the limestone itself being a white crystalline mass of granular limestone, 
granular dolomite and calc spar full of specks of crystallized and semici%stallized 
graphite and replete with a variety of other interesting minerals in solitary crystals 
or in bunches and veins; some of them true veins of feldspar (sand 65 + clay 20 + 
potash 15) edged with crystallized mica and graphite, and some of them tolerably 
pure labradorite (= sand 55 + clay 25 + lime 11 + soda 4). As to the serpentine 
(sand 1J magnesia 1 and water 1) Mr. Rogers in his Final Report says that its 
presence with talc and other magnesian minerals “ naturally suggests a possible 
origin by segregation, either in full or in part, from the dolomitic layers of the 
original magnesian limestone,” but previously he expresses igneous convictions as 
plainly as possible when speaking of the bunches and vein-like included masses as 
if “ they had been elaborated from the materials of the gneiss caught in and 
melted up with more or less of the elements of the limestoneand on the pre¬ 
ceding page (224) he says that the small basins of limestone under description are 
“ only outlying patches of the great Auroral limestone of southern Pennsylvania, 
folded, metamorphosed, disguised and mineralized by intense igneous action , or that 
transforming agency which invaded all the older formations of the district in which 
they occur.” 

On page 243 he is still more explicit, where, describing after Mr. Trego the 
calcareous slates and sandstone at the base of his auroral system (No. 2) near Easton, 
speckled throughout with greenish serpentine etc, or converted into white crystal¬ 
line dolomitic marble, he adds “ it would thus seem that the great agent of metamor¬ 
phosis in this belt has been the intense heat effused during the intrusion of the great 
dyke of granite which forms the main body of the ridge ” developing hornblende in 
the slates, vitrifying the sandstone, dolomitizing the limestone, and developing 
“ serpentine, silicate of magnesia and in fine the talcous and other magnesian mine¬ 
rals which so greatly abound on both flanks of this remarkable igneous axis.” Yet 
he goes on to adopt all Mr. Trego’s description of the double anticlinal structure 
of the ridge without a suspicion of the structural impossibility involved in such a 
hypothesis. An igneous effusion of granite would have left another Mont Dor 
towering above the Easton hills like a giant among pigmies, and converted the 
whole face of the country into a widely different landscape. The topography of the 
trap dykes further south can be accepted upon igneous principles only on the suppo¬ 
sition that they overflowed under water during the middle secondary era and grew 
cold before the rocks above them were laid down. So if this dream of molten 

8 It is obviously a stratified rock overlying regularly the syenitic belt of the ridge, 
p. 20, 5th An. Rept. The smaller ridge consists chiefly of serpentine and talcose rocks, 
bounded by limestone ; some of the talc contains cubic crystals of sulphuret of iron and 
fine green serpentine, in which zircons are said to be found, p. 20, idem. 

9 See Final Report, vol. i. p. 225. 


442 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


granite were at all convertible into reality it would leave untouched the magnesian 
limestones of a subsequent period. No granite dyke has ever ^yet been seen 
throughout the thousand miles of the Nos. II, III (Lower Silurian) valley. At no 
point has the limestone ever been seen so acted on and the site recorded. The 
mere limitation of the granite to the southern border of that valley is under the 
doctrine of probable chances a valid argument for its superior age. It is incon¬ 
ceivable that no one granite dyke of a subsequent age could succeed in fracturing 
back and overflowing into the valley itself. The outliers of limestone therefore to 
the south must owe their metamorphosis to another cause and of course to watery 
if not to fiery agencies. If so the granite itself and all the other metamorphosed 
minerals %ere changed by a similar watery and by no igneous agency. The serpen¬ 
tine is a true segregation in a moist warm mass, and not a product of fervent 
radiant heat. In this very double anticlinal of Chestnut hill near Easton (not the 
Chestnut hill near Columbia) and between its “ two chief lines of eruptie matter, 
each composed principally of granitic rock ” lie stratified serpentinous beds with 
various associated magnesian minerals and dolomitic limestones. This seems to be 
the only ground for Mr. Rogers’s theory of the double anticlinal as he can only see a 
collapsed synclinal in the occurrence of these beds, but “ the bedding and internal 
stratification of much of the massive serpentine and serpentinous gneiss is too 
obvious to be doubted.” The sentences which follow on page 243 reveal the entire 
uncertainty of the writer’s mind and the utter darkness of the ground to him, as he 
wavers now to the igneous and now to the aqueous view and in the end hands over 
to the reader the whole tangled argument to unravel for himself in these concluding 
words : “ the serpentinous rocks even of the more central parts of the ridge exhibit 
a sort of stratification [Mr. Trego said the stratification was too obvious to be 
doubted], and this implies that a portion at least of the material called serpentine 
here [perhaps not rightly] was originally a sedimentary rock, but altered, the 
transformation consisting, most probably [we cannot say for certain] both [and 
thus the difficulty is avoided] in a segregation of its own elements, and an intrusion 
of true igneous mineral matter.” A lucid statement. 

A brown hematite gangue 4 feet thick traverses the Greifendorf serpentine in 
Europe and includes bunches of gneiss which show a change into brown hematite. 
The serpentine and eklogite are much weathered next the gangue. Lumps of gneiss 
lie about the fields and may have got into the gangue crack. But the red granite 
and hornblende contain enough more iron than the serpentine to account for the 
iron cement between the gneiss balls. Bischof quotes Fallou’s observations to show 
the conversion of granulite into serpentine, against Muller’s opinion that serpentine 
is a fire rock, and adds that he considers the proof made out from the stratigraphi- 
cal exhibitions of the serpentine at Waldheim, etc. and that the veins across serpen¬ 
tine were all open cracks filled afterwards by aqueous solution. 1 

Serpentine veins characterize the boracic acid region of Tuscany in Italy, in which 
are pools or little lakes kept boiling with emanations of hydrogen like the geysers 
of Iceland and of carbonated hydrogen (which has not been detected in the geysers) 
with abundant precipitations of boracic acid. The tertiary rocks in which they lie 
consist of limestone (converted often into gypsum), micaceous grit and schistose 
clays, and are traversed by serpentine masses. The soffioni or impetuous currents 
of gas and stea n which rise through these rocks are at the temperature of boiling 


1 Bischof, Geologie, ii. p. 1485. 


THE PRIMARY IRO^ ORES. 


443 


point, but the force with which they rise suggests a pressure Pennsylvania, 
below involving the existence of a still higher temperature. 

In the vicinity of the Monte Cerboli serpentine, the limestone is converted into gyp¬ 
sum, “ and the traces of these ancient metamorphic influences may be followed up 
to the present emanations which are their last representatives and continue their 
work.” 2 It is evident that an excessive degree of heat has nothing to do with a 
chemical change like that of carbonate into sulphate of lime, neither therefore ought 
it to be regarded as an element in the force which substituted the magnesia in the 
serpentine for the lime in the limestone. Silicate of magnesia can be infiltrated 
at 212° F. as easily as ejected at 2120°. 

Serpentine and the protoxides of iron and manganese with greenish white talc 
and silicate of alumina and sometimes actinolite and chromic iron ore in crys¬ 
talline grains, the whole mixed in with pure-white anhydrous carbonate of 
magnesia nearly pure, form that splendid and lasting marble Verd-antique dis¬ 
covered a few years ago and now extensively wrought in Roxbury Vermont, 
columns of which ten feet in length and one in diameter stand in the colonnades of 
the new Capitol at Washington 3 

Chromic iron occurs in Monterey county a short distance south of the Mission 
of San Juan in California, massive, of excellent quality, almost identical with the 
ore from Wood’s pit in Maryland and like it partly covered with green coats and 
crusts of emerald nickel. 4 * 

The titanium in titaniferous iron is no more evidence of the locally igneous ori¬ 
gin of titaniferous iron than nickel in a lump of iron is of its meteoric origin; nor 
as much; for Dr. Mazade of Valence has detected titanium with zircon, molybde¬ 
num, tin, tungsten, tantalum, cerium, yttrium, glucinium, nickel and cobalt in the 
mineral waters of Neyrac in France. 6 

A titaniferous iron ore vein occurs on the east branch 
Brandywine near Isabella Furnace Chester county Pennsylva¬ 
nia, in a gneiss rock; a specimen, black, metallic lustrous, 
foliated and granular, magnetic and polar, spec. grav. 4.95, 
analyzed 76.86 protoxide iron, 22.39 titanic acid. 6 

In Harford county Maryland on Deer creek titaniferous iron 
is mined (in chlorite talc), and the same ore occurs in neigh¬ 
boring localities, as at Mine Old Fields, and ScarfF’s (in serpen¬ 
tine. 7 ) 

Chrome iron ore was found in Montgomery county Maryland 
some years before Ducatel reported in 1837 and cost the 
operators a heavy loss. Subsequently hundreds of tons were 
taken out, and a thick vein discovered about the head waters of 
the Seneca on Lyde Griffith’s land, the ore yielding 35 to 40 per 

2 St. Claire Deville and F. Le Blanc in Phil. Mag. 1858, p. 284, xxx. 

3 Annual Sci. Dis. 1856, p. 327. 

* W. P. Blake, U. S. Geol. Sill. Journal, 1856. 

6 Ann. Sc. Disc. Boston, 1853, p. 203. 

6 Dr. R. E. Rogers’s Fifth Ann. Report, 1841. 

’ Ducatel’s Report, 1837, p. 34. 


444 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


cent of chrome. Stewart’s analysis gave chromic acid 45.5, 
peroxide iron 45.0, alumina 7.5, silica 2.5. Seybert’s analysis of a 
Chester county specimen gave oxide of chromium 51.562, per¬ 
oxide of iron 35.140, alumina 9.723 silica 2.000. Beudant’s an¬ 
alysis of a specimen from near Baltimore gave—Oxide of chro¬ 
mium 39.514, peroxide iron 36.004, alum. 13.002, silica 10.596. 8 


Tyron’s mine near SykesvilJe Maryland is described by 
Ansted the English geologist, in a paper read before the Geolo¬ 
gical Society of London February 25 1857 and printed on the 
242 page of the Journal of the Society. Like the Hiwassee 
iron-copper lodes which he describes in the same paper, this ore 
bed, or lode as he would call it, crops out upon a ridge several 
feet wide, composed of hard ferruginous quartz, with numerous 
crystals of magnetic ore. At the mine the string of ore varies 
in width from ten inches to as many feet. A shaft 60 feet deep 
yielded excellent protoxide and peroxide of iron. Further 
down the fine, pure crystalline ore became spotted and mixed 
with sulphuret of iron, and horses of dead ground came in to 
split up the vein. Sulphuret of copper came in on the upper 
side of the horses against the foot wall of the workings. The 
copper pyrites could be easily handpicked from the magnetic 
iron, silicate and carbonate of copper, and mundic, which were 
all mixed up together. 

This is one of three parallel lodes all looking alike as far as 
shafted on. Still others have been discovered between these 
and the Blue Ridge, always occupying the crests of low ridges. 

Carrol mine, which is probably on the Tyson lode two miles 
north of Tyson’s mine, contains blocks of steatite. At Mineral 
hill and at Fenceburg, two and eight miles further north, open¬ 
ings have been made upon the same set of beds, the copper below 
being in all cases surmounted by a gossan of crystalline protox¬ 
ide and peroxide of iron in a highly magnetic state, and inclosed 
in steatite and talc walls. The lines of ore across the country 
open and shut, so to speak, as though the ore went down in 
pipes at intervals, or issued from below not in a regular sheet, 
but in jets at intervals along the line. They all dip steeply 
to the east-southeast. 


8 Ducate', 1838, p. 5. 




THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


445 


Near the picturesque Point of Pocks in the . . 

1 1 vireinia 

Blue Pidge gorge of the. Potomac an enormous 6 

mass of hydrous oxide of iron (limonite) is quarried, between 

soft slates dipping east. Soft blue shale divisions split up the 

mass into several beds, and the masses of ore from 20 to 100 feet 

long are concreted around clay-filled cavities. Mr. Ansted 

thinks that this mass of iron ore is but the top of a vast copper 

lode beneath the surface. It certainly extends hack from the 

river along the Blue Pidge range. 

The primary ores of Virginia have not been described. 
The manufacture of iron in the country of the Blue Pidge and 
to the east of it where the primary, Huronian (and perhaps 
Laurentian) system is developed, although very old for the New 
World, has been as unsuccessful as in Pennsylvania. Of 
eighteen furnaces east of the Blue Pidge only one was in blast 
in 1856, and that for but half the year, making 760 tons in a 
region where the standing capacity was at least 20,000 tons per 
annum. The Potomac furnace on the Virginia bank of the 
river a mile below the Point of Pocks uses the extraordinary 
exposure of brown hematite which lies in such a way as to show 
that it is a decomposition of an ore bed in some other form, pro¬ 
bably that of a sulphuret. Some authorities compare it favor¬ 
ably with the Chestnut hill ore near Columbia in Pennsylvania; 
others say the ore is injured by phosphorus. A new furnace in 
Spotsylvania county about 15 miles from Mansfield P.O. has 
.Seen built on what is called a “ good rich vein,” but it is unde¬ 
scribed. Pough and Peady furnace (H. 155) six miles from 
Louisa C.H. has magnetic ore within two miles both east and 
west of it, and mixes it with brown hematite from two miles 
northeast. Elk creek furnace (H. 158) 25 miles north of Lynch¬ 
burg, works a magnetic, 80 per cent, 4 foot vein, 400 yards west of 
the stack, and mixes with its ore, brown hematite from a vein a 
mile to the north of it from 4 to 20 feet thick and 100 feet deep, 
impregnated with sulphuret of zinc. Beargarden in Bucking¬ 
ham county, Stonewall and Lagrande in Appomatox, Oxford in 
Campbell, Saunders in Franklin, Poplar Camp in Wythe, Shel- 
or’s and another old furnace in Floyd and a third in Grayson, 
are all abandoned stacks, built to smelt primary ores no doubt, 
mixed with brown hematites. Carron furnace (H. 163) in 
Franklin county uses a sulphurous brown hematite. Union fur- 


446 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


nace (II. 164) in Patrick county on Ilales creek lias a great 
variety of ores among which are some black, perhaps magnetic. 
West Fork furnace (H. 165) in Floyd county 7 miles east- 
southeast of Lynchburg mixed in 1853 the Union ores with 
some that had been exposed for 30 years and made superior 
iron from them, but these are all brown hematites. In middle 
Virginia a multitude of furnaces have been built along the 
Great valley between the Potomac and the Tennessee line, of 
which but 21 made any iron in 1856 and these only 13,000 
tons instead of 30,000 as they should have done, and not one of 
all these furnaces are reported as using any ore but the brown 
hematite of the Valley limestone, Lower Silurian, No. II. It is 
not to be imagined that this immense stretch of Huronian rocks 
is barren magnetic iron ground. The resources of the Blue 
Pidge must some day be explored. 9 

As lately as in his North Carolina Beport for 1856 Dr. Em¬ 
mons says that in that State “ the oxides of iron occur only in 
veins excepting where the mass has undergone certain changes. 
The mode in which ferruginous veins have been filled is clearly 
that which is assigned to trap or granite. Iron however in com¬ 
bination with chlorine is volatile and is vaporized and finally 
deposited in the condition of a peroxide or specular oxide.” 
Specular iron is found in North Carolina in true veins. 1 No 
mistake can be greater. The specular beds of the middle south 
border of the State are too well described by Tuomey and Lie- 
ber to leave us in doubt of their sedimentary origin. By “ cer¬ 
tain changes ” Dr. Emmons of course means the weathering 
peroxidizing, and especially hydrating influence which has 
deposited so extensively the brown hematite (limonite) iron ore 
and brown manganese ores which he describes on page 105, 
where he goes on to grant that “iron in a state of hydrous 
peroxide is not confined to the soil of the present; it is a deposit 
in beds in most of the systems of rocks, the Silurian, Devonian, 
Carboniferous and Permianbut he argues that the original 
deposits, volatile in the presence of water and sulphur, were 
introduced in a state of vapor into the fissures of the earth’s 
crust and became incorporated with the porous wall rocks. 

In North Carolina beginning at the western part of the 

9 Bulletin, A. I. A. 1858, p. 113. 1 Emmons. Page 84. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


447 


midland counties, winch are traversed bv __ ,, ^ 

iicr ,. i , / North Carolina, 

three belts of magnetic ore, changed m 

some places to specular, the hrst belt, says Dr. Emmons, 
passes from six to seven miles east of Lincolnton, and is pro¬ 
longed into the King’s mountain range of Gaston county, 
south westward. His section No. 1, plate XIY shows a flat 
country of gneiss towards the east, broken up though by 
a vein of manganese (!), and a mass of coarse granite on the 
west. Into the deep geological gorge conceived to exist 
between the two, plunges a vertical plug of “ Taconic rocks ” 
with the following arrangement from west to east:—Slate, 
limestone, slate, limestone, slate, granular quartz, slate, granular 
quartz, graphite, mica slate, iron ore against the wall of gneiss. 
The probability of these rocks being the three members of the 
Lower Silurian System Slate III, Limestone II, Sandstone I, with 
the iron ore of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, in its 
proper and regular place, at the top of the gneissoid or Huronian 
rocks, is evident at a glance. Lincolnton is on the coarse light 
grey micaceous u granite.” The ore is in a thin bed of talc 
slates and the granular quartz sandstone is a marked rock trace¬ 
able from the Catawba river into South Carolina. The beds of 
ore are seen on the north side of the plank road seven miles east 
of Lincolnton. The limestone is a mile west of the ore. The ore 
is usually near the crest of a ridge, or traverses parallel ridges 
very obliquely; “there is no instance in which the vein runs 
precisely parallel with a ridge or follows it; it makes in this 
instance towards the east,” bearing N. 20° east as the strata do. 
[This shows that the ridges do not obey the stratification, and 
that the ore does.] The veins of Lincoln county are lens shaped, 
with knife edges lapping each other; increasing from nothing to 
6 or 8 feet thick in a length or depth of 50 or 60 feet. Dr. Em¬ 
mons says each oval mass invariably sets back against the foot 
wall of the mass above it. But evidently that will depend upon 
the way the miner moves. The ore is usually fine grained ; rarely 
coarse; soft; breaking readily and crushing in the hand, from 
being mixed with talc slate; strongly magnetic; easily smelted; 
upper portions of the vein disintegrated to a loose red mass, 
powdery; interior, black granular. The veins have been 
wrought for many years and have made a celebrated iron, 
strong and tough. Brevard and Johnson are the chief owners. 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


448 

This range of ore prolonged appears next at the High Shoals 
of the Catawba with the same rock relations, but the ore 
somewhat changed. Ferguson’s Bank gives a snuff-colored 
brown hematite decomposed from a very pyritous gangue ore, 
and making good casting iron but bad bar unless entirely 
decomposed. Ellis’s Bank, three miles from Fullenwider’s old 
furnace in the direction of King’s mountain gives a black ore in 
a vein 18 feet wide, N. 20° east, an inexhaustible supply of 
good iron. Carson Bank, the most easterly, gives a common 
black magnetic ore, curiously jointed and breaking up into 
angular fragments. The belt continues to King’s mountain 
where Briggs vein is 40 feet thick. Iron has been made here 
for half a century. Beds of Hematites occur near the top of 
the mountain. Crowder’s mountain, near its top, furnishes the 
same in a specular vein 6 to 7 feet wide. No doubt between 
Sherrill’s Ford on the Catawba and Limestone Springs on the 
Broad river in South Carolina many more exhibitions of these 
ores will yet be discovered; but the resources of the present are 
so vast that no inducement is held out to active exploration. 
In Lincoln county a fine bed of hematite exists two miles south¬ 
west of Lincolnton. 2 

In Lincoln county three furnaces are running on these mag¬ 
netic ores, Behoboth, Madison and Yesuvius, the first using 
Leiper’s creek ore and using the iron for castings, the second 
using the same ore two miles distant and applying the metal in 
the same way, and the third using the same ore from the same 
bank. Madison, Springfield, Mount Tirza and Mount Welcome 
Catalan forges all bloom up the ore from this celebrated Iron 
Bank. In Gaston county Columbia furnace, now abandoned, 
used a nickeliferous magnetic ore mined close by. It will go 
again into operation accompanied with rolling mill and forges. 
Brigg’s bloomaries work up ore in their neighborhood. 

In Cleveland, further west and in the natural range south- 
westward of the Stokes and Surrey ores, six bloomary forges are 
in active exercise making from 12 to 109 tons of iron per annum 
each. Dixon’s on Knob creek, 12 miles northwest from Shelby ; 
Buffalo Shoals, Froneberger’s, Buffalo, and Buffalo Iron Works, 
all on Buffalo creek, make their ore from Brigg’s Yellow Bidge 
Bank, grey magnetic ore from under the w T est side of King’s 

2 Emmons’s Report. 





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THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


449 


mountain. The first of these four uses a 


North Carolina. 


leaner distant ore and is to be abandoned in 
consequence. The last mixes three magnetic ores. Lastly 
Stice’s Shoals bloomary on First Broad river three miles north 
of its mouth, works up Ormond’s magnetic ore. 

In Rutherford, Tumbling Shoals bloomary works up the red 
specular ore 13 miles southeast of the county seat. 3 


The Second Belt of North Carolina primary ores in the 

Midland Counties begins say in Montgomery county, crosses 
Randolph near Franklinville and Guilford 10 miles west of 
Greensborough. Mr. de Bern’s ore is 7 miles southwest from 
Troy, in a pine forest, and related to the rocks thus:—Gold or 
Talc slate, Quartzite, Ore,“ Agalmatolite, Talc slate. The beds 
are traversed obliquely by a narrow bed of hornblende. The 
mass of ore is 50 feet wide, occupying a knoll or low hill and 
traceable a quarter of a mile, silicious at the surface, with 
subordinate seams of pure heavy peroxide, strike N. 30° east, 
dip steep northwest, jointed, breaking angularly, non-sulphur- 
ous.—Four miles north of Troy, in the same range, and near 
the Carter gold mine, is another series of veins of magnetic ore 
much of it octahedral, very friable, intermixed with talc slate 
and quartz grains ; the beds differing in composition from one 
another, a bed of specular ore lying side by side within a few 
feet of one of magnetic ore.—The Davie county and Stokes 
county ores, the distant observed points lying in direct lines 
parallel with the limestones and slates, are prolongations of the 
Lincoln county belt, but Dr. Emmons could not trace these 
rocks across Catawba and Davie counties, for after crossing the 
Catawba we lose the guides above mentioned. He has some 
doubt also about the age of the Germanton Limestone, supposing 
it may be different from that df the Kings mountain limestone. 
The continuity of the line is better preserved in the South than 
in Davie and Stokes. Three or four miles southwest of Frank- 
linville and near Deep river heavy black massive magnetic 
ore lies in abundance loose about the uncultivated surface, 
near a fine ore bed, removed but a short distance from the 
quartzite outcrop. 

In Stokes county four bloomary forges within ten miles 


* Bulletin A. I. Ass. notes to tables H and I. B. S. Lyman. 

29 


450 


FART II.-DIVISION II. 


around Danville work up magnetic ore. Two of them are in or 
opposite the town, Frost’s has been abandoned six years, but 
Keyser’s six miles northwest of Germantown is in use again, its 
ore is close by. 

A magnetic ore bed one mile from Danbury is reported by 
G. J. Philips in 1856, J. Pepper and E. Emmons, to be 6 feet 
thick, nearly vertical, strike northeast, percentage of iron 77, 
depth of shaft 57 feet. The Dan river coal basin is within ten 
miles. There is a belt of magnetic ore veins through Stokes 
county 6 miles long by 2 or 3 wide in gneiss and mica slate, and 
dipping very gently. Rogers’s bank 3 miles from Danbury has 
long been wrought. 

In Surrey are six bloomaries, and one furnace, now in ruins. 
Hill’s forge with the Tom’s creek furnace near it, Eulk’s (aban¬ 
doned in 1853), Hiatt’s upper and lower, Blackwood’s and 
Cooper’s all make small quantities of iron from magnetic ore 
found in the neighborhood. Hill’s vein on Tom’s creek 5 miles 
from the Pilot mountain runs from 7 to 17 feet thick, 67 per 
cent, dip 40° northeastward. Blackwood’s ore is near his forge 
on Fisher’s river. ( Bulletin .) 

In Yadkin three bloomaries, Hobson’s two and Forbusli’s use 
neighboring magnetic ore, on Forbush creek, 5 miles east from 
Yadkin ville. {Bulletin.) 

In Catawba two bloomaries Mount Carmel and Rough and 
Ready both on Mountain creek 12 miles southeast from New¬ 
ton, get their magnetic ore all along the south side of Mountain 
creek, and a third, Jenny Lind on Maiden’s creek 6 miles south 
from Newton, gets a very rich ore from three miles south of it. 

Specular ore was discovered and shafted on near Trogden 
mountain many years ago before the present settlers came. 
“ Old crucibles and furnaces still attest the unprofitable industry 
of some expectant of a fortune in the splendid lustre of this 
specular oxide of iron.” In Guilford county ten miles west 
of Greensborough between Brush creek and Ready Fork, seve¬ 
ral veins of black and middling coarse, valuable, magnetic ore, 
unmixed and pure, have been long known. Dr. Emmons re¬ 
marks that in the New York mineral districts a crumbly ore is 
expected to make a soft, and a hard tough shining ore a hard, 
intractable iron. This is a dull and very heavy ore, apparently 
running in two parallel veins, with magnet outcrop (each piece 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


451 


having two or more poles of attraction and __ , „ 

i \ • ."l i p /~h m % Carolina 

repulsion) running northward trom (Jomn s, 

through Harris’s plantations to Morehead’s on the Troublesome, 

“ wliere it is in great force,” and southward through Chipman’s 

and Unthank’s. It is therefore a separate subordinate belt. 4 

The Third Belt of North Carolina primary ores, the 

eastern or Chatham belt, is the least regular. Specular ore 
crops out on Evans’ ridge four or five miles from the Gulf of 
Deep river on the plank road leading north, as an eight foot vein 
in talc slate, connected with amalgatolite or figure-stone (called 
soapstone in the neighborhood improperly, for it has no magne¬ 
sia) a rock associated with these Carolina iron ores. Another 
seam exists on Glass’s lands near by, as crystallized specular 
ore. Not far off is Ore hill, a famous locality of hematite tra¬ 
versing a knob 300 feet high in east and west belts in talc slate, 
quartzite forming the pinnacle of the hill. Here old excava¬ 
tions show where in the times of the Revolutionary war the 
large concretionary masses of ore were extracted. Magnetic ore 
is found on Heading’s place, resembling Coffin’s ore. T. Un- 
tliank’s magnetic ore vein from one to three feet thick is two or 
or three miles beyond Evans’s bed and one mile off the plank 
road. In Johnston county four miles west of Sinithfield is 
a large deposit of hematite near quartzite. In Wake county 
eight miles southwest of Raleigh is a similar bluff of hematite in 
clay slate and chlorite slate at Whitaker’s. In Orange county 
in the Red mountain range extensive ore beds are reported by 
Mr. Gillis of Granville county. 

Carbonate of Iron occurs in many places in North Carolina, 
but in combination with copper pyrites. It is very common on 
the head waters of the Uwharrie near Gen. Gray’s. At John¬ 
son’s a vein of it containing gold, but pure enough to work for 
iron has been exposed in several shafts. 6 

In Ashe county in the extreme northwest corner of North 
Carolina among the Backbone mountains of the Blue Ridge 
range there were once nine bloomaries at work ; only three re¬ 
main, making from 5 to 15 tons a year apiece, Helton’s, Little 
Elk and Little River, on streams of the same names. But these 
forges run on so-called fine hematite ores, whether red or brown 


* Emmons’s Report. 


6 Dr. Emmons’s Report of 1856, p. 127. 


452 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


is not stated. The banks are numerous however. In Watauga 
county three bloomaries make together less than 15 tons a year. 
The Cranberry creek bloomary bank (on a branch of Elk creek) 
has a “ very superior, 80 per cent, magnetic ore bank within a 
mile south of it, and another 60 per cent ore bank half a mile 
further.” The Toe river forge directly opposite the Cranberry 
forge across the mountain ridge and Johnson’s forge three miles 
still higher up Toe river, drew their supply from the Cranberry 
bank, but latterly have opened a magnetic vein one and a half 
mile north of J ohnson’s. In Cherokee county, at the extreme 
southwest corner of North Carolina are six bloomaries. Loving- 
good’s and Little Hanging-dog on Hanging-dog creek use lump 
or brown hematite. Fain on Owl creek at the mouth of Hang- 
ing-dog and two miles from Lovinggood’s uses the same ore 
which is said to work easily and well, unwashed, yielding 35 
per cent. The Persimmon creek and Shoal creek bloomaries use 
red ore from Kilpatrick’s bank, which is 27 miles east of Duck- 
town in Tennessee. The ore is probably the brown hematite 
outcrop of a double sulphuret vein like the Ducktown veins. 6 

In South Carolina, the First or Lincoln primary ore belt of 
North Carolina, entering York District, crosses Broad river be¬ 
tween Buffalo and King’s creeks at the Cherokee ford and 
Ninety-nine islands into the Spartanburg District. 7 The mag¬ 
netic and specular ores, says Prof. Tuomey the State Geologist 
in his Report of 1848, from which the most of what here follows 
has been taken, are chiefly confined to a narrow belt of slate in 
York, Union and Spartanburg districts extending along the north¬ 
ern side of King’s Mountain, and terminating at the head of 
People’s creek, a distance of six or eight miles, being underlaid 
by the lime rock and surmounted by the mica slate of the King’s 
Mountain range, strike N. 50° east, dip 45° to 70° southeast. 
[It is possible therefore that these dips are all overturns, and 
then the iron and primal slates will properly underlie the Lower 
Silurian Limestone.] 

The Grey Magnetic ore beds occur intercalated among the 
layers of a band of talc slate never more than half a mile wide, 


fl Of which hereafter, p. . Bulletin A. I. Ass. 1858, notes, p. 140. 

7 See Tuomey’s Report. Map on page 80. See also Lieber’s map of 1857. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


453 


and follow the foldings and irregularities of' „ 

the slate. They are therefore pure chemico- ° U 3X0 ma * 
sedimentary deposits and lie in lenticular form, swelling out to 
15 or 20 feet and diminishing again to nothing; lying side by 
side and yet so insulated that one bed may be entirely worked 
out without giving a clue to the existence of another lying 
within a few inches alongside ; the lenticular structure being 
as much vertical as horizontal. Not only is the ore contempo¬ 
rary with the slate but graduates into it so as to be distinguished 
from it only by its greater weight, and must therefore have been 
deposited with it. 

The ore appears on the bold shores of Broad river down to 
water’s edge, yet all the workings were, at least up to 1848, mere 
surface strippings on the hill country above. The disintegrat¬ 
ing, friable character of the ore makes a smooth weathered sur¬ 
face, marked only by a few rusty pebbles. Sulphuret of iron 
was seen by Prof. Tuomey at but one opening, on Blackrock 
creek half a mile above Quin’s on the left bank of Broad, where 
parallel quiet slate walls inclose several beds of compact hard 
tough brilliant black granular highly magnetic and polar mas¬ 
sive ore, almost unmixed with foreign matter, of considerable 
thickness. Ore occurs at Quin’s ; and ore has been got for the 
Nesbit Manufacturing Company near Cherokee ford, in some 
fine beds. Other beds have been shafted on, a few miles beyond 
Quin’s, all of them in black friable ore. The talc slates extend 
a few miles further, narrow and disappear. This shows either a 
synclinal or anticlinal structure. The section which Tuomey 
gives on page 79 would go to show that the anticlinal structure 
is the true one, for he there exhibits the great quartz rock of 
King’s mountain dipping southeast, and under it, the North and 
South Carolina outcrop of red and specular iron ore next to be 
described ; under this, the gold ore and iron ore rock; and under 
this, the talc slates with their grey magnetic ore ; under this, the 
flexible quartz or Itacolumite, and under this, limestone in the 
centre of the axis, on the opposite slope of which he places iron 
ore again. But the section is radically defective on account of 
the impossible radiation of the central dips. We cannot there¬ 
fore decide between a vanishing anticlinal carrying the talc slates 
under, southwards, or a vanishing collapsed synclinal carrying 
them into the air, southwards. 


454 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


In other parts of South Carolina Tuomey found indications of 
valuable magnetic ore; in Chester District near Cornwall’s 
large masses of compact ore in hornblende; a few miles north¬ 
west of Abbeville; on Hardlabor creek, near a bed of peroxide 
of manganese. 

The mines yield three varieties of magnetic ore. 1. The dull, 
dark, pulverulent favorite ore of the furnaces and forges, disposed 
to be lamellar, easily mined and easily wrought although not so 
rich. 2. The granular ore, in masses of cemented grains of 
small size and partly crystalline, containing 86.00 peroxide, 12.00 
insoluble matter and magnesia and a trace of manganese, and 
yielding 60 per cent of iron when washed. 3. The contact, 
pure bed-ore, hard and tough, highly metallic and magnetic, 
containing 91.00 peroxide, 8.66 insoluble, 0.34 oxide manga¬ 
nese, and yielding 63 per cent of iron. One variety of ore from 
People’s creek seemed largely mixed with oxide of manganese. 

The specular ores of South Carolina lie in a belt of mica slates 
immediately overlying the talc slates containing the magnetic 
ores, 8 and forming the northern slope of King’s mountain, 
from the ISTorth Carolina line to Gelkey’s mountain in Union 
district. A similar bed of mica slate, upon the other side of the 
anticlinal, dipping sokthwest and overlying the limestone of 
York district, contains similar beds of specular ore. Prof. Tuo- 
mey gives on page 82 a diagram showing two closely folded col¬ 
lapsed and overturned anticlinal waves in the mica slates, in¬ 
cluding and folding a regular bed of ore, double in structure 
(like a double coal-bed) black (with a red streak) with thread¬ 
like veins of quartz running through it. Its locality is known 
as the Bird bank a little north of Meadow branch of Kind’s 
creek. On the north side of Gelkey’s mountain the ore is in 
bent slate, and the quantity very great. Kear the King’s Moun¬ 
tain Furnace is a bed two or three feet thick, distinctly lami¬ 
nated and breaking into rhombs. Near the surface it is red and 
rather pulverulent, particularly on the surface of the laminae; 
lower down and further in it becomes grey and somewhat mag¬ 
netic ; still lower or further iron pyrites appears and spoils the 
vein. This reverses Yolger’s law of metamorphoses which puts 
the magnetic form after the red hematite. It also assimilates 

8 Does the extra iron in mica over talc account in any degree for the more perfect oxi¬ 
dation of the ores in the mica slates over those of the talc slates ? 


THE PRIMARY TRUST ORES. 


455 


these red hematite beds with 
the composite pyritous beds 
of Polk comity Tennessee, and 
elsewhere, and takes another 
step across from the sedimen¬ 
tary to the primary pheno¬ 
mena. Near the Iron Works 
on Dear Little creek red ox¬ 
ide was once got in abund¬ 
ance, and numerous exposures 
may be seen on the mountain 
spur. Here comes in the Bird 
bank mentioned above. v Di¬ 
rectly west, on Jumping 
Branch is Hardin bank, strike 
N 50° East, dip 45° to 80° 
northwest, 3 to 4 feet thick 
very uniform, planes unusu¬ 
ally straight for micaceous 
rocks, regularly interstratified 
with the slates, splitting rea¬ 
dily into laminae, ochreous 
(red and yellow—hydrated) 
at the surface, for 20 feet 
in, then grey with reddish 
streak, somewhat magnetic; 
at water level pyrites appears, 
and native sulphur coats the 
fissures. Ore compact, com¬ 
posed of small slightly co¬ 
hering grains, with a dull grey 
lustre except where crushed ; 
there red. It was, says Tuo- 
mey, originally a pyrites bed 
and is so still no doubt at a 
sufficient depth. In all the 
gold mines of the State iron 
occurs invariably as pyrites. 
The ore ranges on from the 
Hardin bank in the line of 


South Carolina. 























456 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


strike. 9 The structure of the surface for 8 miles west of King’s 
Mountain is shown by the section in Prof. Lieber’s Report ot 
1857, in which at least eleven folded axes appear, of a shape to 
demonstrate a gentle side thrust, and subversive of any law ot 
wave movement such as Prof. Rogers has fancied. But what is 
remarkable Lieber assigns a place to all the banks along the 
line of section, Carroll’s, Bird’s, Lee’s, Dr. Barker’s, and Hard¬ 
ing’s, in the mica- and not in the talc-slate ground. As this is 
. the first, instance of a clear section given by any American geo¬ 
logist fixing the ores in their stratigraphical relationships to 
these obscure and much debated rocks it is given on the pre¬ 
ceding page. 1 

The rocks of the older forma¬ 
tions according to Lieber are : Clayslate . 
but the relations of 

the clay slate and Hornblende slate 

Hornblende slate 

in the one part of 

the State to the five corresponding rocks is a matter of obscurity. 
Tuomey considers the clay slate of Chesterfield and (southeast) 


/ Limestone, 

•< Itacolumite, 

( Specular schist, 
( Talcose slate, 

1 Mica slate. 


9 Tuoraey’s Report on the Geology of South Carolina 1848, p. 83. 

1 Lieber is one who values the labors and quotes the works of Fournet,* Combes, De- 
lesse, Von Weissenbach, Zimmermann,f Bischof, Cotta, fGatzschmann and Breithaupt§ 
condemns the superficial English theorizing on the origin and nature of veins as mere 
accidental occurrences, condemns Delabeehe for believing in the secretion of the gangue 
mineral from the country or wall rock, condemns the believers in the igneous origin of 
the gangue rock which as he says resembles no igneous rock known, praises (and justly) 
Whitney’s book as “the first real attempt at commencing a mining literature in our 
country.” but adopts the hypothesis of Werner modified by Elie de Beaumont|| and 
others that “ veins are filled crevices (a fact now universally admitted ”) supplied with 
solutions drained into them, not from the surface as Werner supposes, but from the inte¬ 
rior of the planet, mineral waters, hot springs, steam, the surplus only of which went up 
into the surface waters and was floated off and precipitated elsewhere ; Cotta showing 
how the same precipitations were made upon both walls at the same time, and different 
precipitations in the same order, the order of their solubility. Lieber applies these views 
to the explanation of the successive gold-lead-copper appearances in a peculiar class of 
South Carolina veins, and assures us the old genetic causes are still at work. He denies 
any distinction between cross veins and bed veins, as cracks may occur in any direction. 
He gives a vocabulary of the technical terms in French, German and English vein min¬ 
ing, notices the electrical experiments of Reich and Fox and closes his introduction with 
a discussion of the gossan or outcrop sign of veins. 


* In his Simplification de l’etude d’une certaine classe de filons, and vol. iii of d’Aubisson de Voi- 
sins and Amadee Burat’s Traite de Geognosie, Paris 1828, 1834-5. t In Wiederausrichtung Verwor- 
fener Gange. % Ganglehre und Gangstudien. § Auf and Unter-suchung der Lagerstatten Nutzbarei 
Mineralien. || French Geological Soc., 2 series, vol. iv. p. 1249. 



THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


457 


Lancaster possibly paheozoic [Lower Silurian; 

No. Ill; Hudson river?] ; it underlies the South Carolma - 
tertiaries, and becomes talcose as it approaches the talc 
slate region. The -specular schist,* the rock which is mined 
as an ore west of King’s mountain, is a companion to the 
itocolumite here, as in Brazil. It is an exceedingly rare rock 
only known in the Brazils, Marmoras and Provence. Here 
it lies between talc slates. The Bird bank shows it in 
typical form, and it can be traced along the southern limestone 
outcrop southwestward to the two ranges of hills bounding 
Dolittle creek, Dolittle and Silver mountains. On the former 
hill a quarry crosses it 40 feet without interruption, the whole 
hill consisting of alternate quartz, talcose and specular schists, 
the greatest thickness of the latter being between the itacolu- 
mite and talc slates, dipping 64-| & S. 49° east, but the quartz 
rocks folding so as to dip 90° N. 5° east and the talc slates 
90° N. 11° east. The ore gives out east of Harding’s. On 
the Dolittle mountain it is perfectly developed and characterized, 
looking like mica schists, steel grey, but betrayed by its streak. 
Further north it grow r s less schistose and more granular and 
more talcose, and a little magnetic, weathering to brown hema¬ 
tite. It is the itabirite of Eschwege, but with less quartz and 
more talc than at the peak of Itabira in Brazil. It is essentially 
talc (or chlorite) strata charged with the crystals of magnetite, 
alternating with strata less charged. The needle is not affected. 
The bed which is opened at Lee & Parker’s and by the Swede 
Company in the corner of Union are in the neighborhood of 
dykes of melapliyre or of diorite, which may have produced the 
magnetic ore locally [but common decomposition is sufficient to 
account for the charge]. The Lee & Parker bed is underlaid 
by a barytic vein of unknown width, which cuts off the bed 
sometimes, and also strings into it. Here occur mesotype, 
hyalitic quartz, chlorite, pure talc, asbestus, 2 3 staurolith, and sul¬ 
phate of iron. The bed here dips 60° S. 43° east, and runs 
northeast to the east of the summit of King’s mountain in North 
Carolina, in one or two places underground, that is with no 
visible outcrop, but the connection is established by a curious 


2 Siderocriste, Eisenglimmerschiefer, fer oligiste micac6. 

3 Compare the Nevr York Stirling mines, page 411 above. 


458 


PART II-DIVISION II. 


fact. When Briggs sunk his deep pump shaft at his North 
Carolina gold mine, the Parker and the Lee hanks 14 miles dis¬ 
tant were entirely drained, filled again when his pump stopped 
and were again drained by Commodore Stockton. 4 These ores 
with charcoal yield an unrivalled steel, and an English Com¬ 
pany were lately securing possession of the region. 4 

In Spartanburg district are five furnaces of which Cherokee 
has been long abandoned, and Ellen and Susan have made 
nothing for some years. Hurricane on Pacolet river 7 miles 
east-northeast of Spartanburg uses red hematite, 60 per cent, ore 
from a bank 4 miles northeast, on a ten mile railroad into the 
iron and charcoal district. Cowpens on Cherokee creek 3 miles 
south of the State Line gets its ore from near the Hurricane 
banks. The Twins on Broad river, 26 miles northeast of Spar¬ 
tanburg, mix magnetic and hematite (red?) half and half. 5 

There is a bed vein of iron on Nanny’s mountain in York dis¬ 
trict much resembling the copper-iron veins of Ducktown, hav¬ 
ing a porous hematite gossan 5 or 6 feet wide descending steeply 
into the mountain, between gneiss rocks. Here an old furnace 
and bloomaries were once at work but made poor iron. 6 

These Ducktown Polk county Tennessee veins extend into 
Virginia and into Alabama in the wide open hill country belt 
between the Alleghany mountain and the Blue Ridge. They 
are a porphyritic mass of iron and copper pyrites, the latter 
being the matrix, although the cubes of the iron excel in bulk. 
This porphyritic structure however is not so well marked in 
Tennessee as in Georgia. This mass fills the vein to the exclu¬ 
sion of other minerals, although quartz is sometimes found on 
one or both walls. Recent explorations by English companies 
at Ducktown to a depth of 400 feet show a gradual increase 
downwards in the value of the copper ore and a diminution of 
iron pyrites. 7 

The Hiwassee or Ocoee mines of Polk county in the south¬ 
east corner of Tennessee, are as much iron as copper mines, and 
an iron furnace was once erected to smelt the ore. The region 
is a prolongation of the Blue Ridge of Virginia, and subject 

* Lieber’s Report of 1857, page 92. 6 Bulletin A. I. A. Notes, p. 113, 1858. 

6 Lieber’s Report 1857, p. 84. 7 Lieber’s Report, p. 83, South Carobua, 1857. 



THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


459 


to all tlie same conjectures of geologists—a _ 

• o o Tennessee 

country of talc and chlorite slates, garnet rocks 

and steatites, hard mica sandstones, crystalline and por- 
pliyritic, as well as marble limestones, like the same range 
so well studied by Logan and Hunt in Canada and in Vermont, 
as the altered rocks of Lower Silurian I, II, IH and IV, 
from Potsdam sandstone up to Shawangunk grit. The strike 
is N. 30° east, and the dip of the veins to be described 
is nearly vertical S. 60° east.' Northwestward descending the 
Ocoee river through closely folded undulations of every steep¬ 
ness of dip and a thousand changes of rock from almost granite 
to almost marble, we approach the great valley of eastern Ten¬ 
nessee and middle Virginia, tilled with indubitable Lower Silu¬ 
rian (Trenton, etc.) Limestones. But near the mines, quartz 
strings range along the strike between the mica slates. These 
Ansted calls neither dykes nor beds, and says that they 
are sometimes seen crossing the rocks at right angles. At inter¬ 
vals along the quartz strings, which remind one of segregations, 
occur, upon the surface, outcrops of porous dark brown iron ore, 
and the rocks on each side of these also become ferruginous. Oc¬ 
casionally magnetic iron ore is seen and the surveyor’s compass 
fails. The connection of the mines, or what is the same thing, 
the continuity of the veins can scarcely be made out, because 
the enormous expansions of the outcrops of the Hiwassee (30 
feet) and the Isabella (250 ! feet) are quite local. The Tennessee 
mine seems to be a continuation of them both united southward, 
but is at its thickest only from 12 to 18 feet, and the Polk 
county lode, its parallel, is from 20 to 40 feet thick. Mr. Ansted 
•calls these four parallel lodes, and says contemptuously of “ Mr. 
Whitney and some American geologists ” that no very satisfac¬ 
tory account has yet been given of these singular deposits. His 
own account published on page 253 of the Geological Society’s 
Journal for February 25 1857 is a model of non-committal 
obscurity, open to exception for the worst faults of the Cornish 
observers, when they travel off their own ground. It is evident 
to those who are accustomed to work, not in rifted primary 
regions, but in sedimentary palaeozoic and metamorphic regions, 
that much if not most of the fire-worship in geology must be 
given up ; that the majority of so-called ejected subterraneous 
metallic veins were in fact injected from above, or else were 


460 


PART II.—DIVISION n. 


original layers in the system of deposits. The perfect conformity 
of these mineral masses with their including and quartz slate 
walls, is the best argument for the latter supposition ; while 
many geologists and chemists of high standing are preparing to 
show the process of subsequent precipitation from an overlying 
metal charged ocean or lake water, into fissures gaping upwards 
only at intervals along their jagged lines. 

Whether original lenticular deposits metamorphosed and up- 
tilted, or ejections from below, Or injections from above, these 
immense beds are found to consist of a double sulphuret of iron 
and copper wherever they are mined down low enough to be 
examined under the lowest water level of the neighborhood. 
Above that level however they show themselves in a dilapidated 
or decomposed condition. Their outcrops run along the sum¬ 
mits of narrow ridges as we might expect them to do, seeing 
how much harder the compound ore and its quartz walls are 
than the slate rocks on each side of them. The rains have de¬ 
composed the pyrites, dissolved and carried off the sulphur in 
the form of free sulphuric acid with sulphate of iron and cop¬ 
per, leaving the skeleton of the vein a porous bed of dark brown 
hematite with an irregular cross layer at the bottom, at water 
level, where the lees would settle, of black oxide of copper, 
under which lies the untouched double sulphuret of iron and 
copper, the original unchanged vein. 

Mr. Ansted says that in one place where sinking was done upon this floor ground, 
at the depth of 17 fathoms the vein-stone became calcareous, but remaining 30 or 
40 feet thick and very hard, while the foot wall rock grew softer. If this is an 
index of anything it intimates the terminating of the ore deposit downwards. 

The irregular cross layer of soft black copper ore always struck in going down 
below the gossan and above the floor ground, and varying from a few inches to 
fifteen or twenty feet in thickness, but not more than five feet on an average, is 
evidently the lees or drainage from the crop down to water level, since it rises going 
in from water level, and thickens also according to the greater quantity of ore 
originally above it, or according to the height of the breasting of the vein. In the 
Polk county vein Mr. Ansted says this is not so. 

We are here interested in it however only as it has left above it immense quanti¬ 
ties of the dark brown oxide of iron, which will some day become of value, while it 
contains itself as much iron as copper, mixed with too much sulphur to be used. 
Ansted gives the following average analysis of six specimens made by T. H. Henry : 

Sulphur 29.47 Copper 26.73 Iron 26.04 Quartz 8.6X) ; + 9.16. Mr. Ansted sums 
up the resemblance of these beds to foreign metalliferous veins thus : 1. They have 
unchangeable walls ; 2. a characteristic quartz or calcspar vein-stone, passing to 
outcrop as ferruginous ; 3. abrupt ends and no bottom ; 4. parallel sub-veins and 
branches; 5. a nearly vertical and regular dip. On the other hand they differ 


TIIE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


461 


from common copper veins 1. by not crossing, but conforming TGIIIIGSSGC. 
to the strata in strike or direction and also 2. in steepness of dip ; 

3. they contain lenses of the wall rock, as if they were interstratified with the schists 
that include them ; 4. they are cut across by the soft black oxide, which lies in hol¬ 
lows in an edge beneath the true edge of the vein, and which, 5. thickens with the 
height of the surface above. In four of these particulars they resemble the gold 
veins of Virginia and the Carolinas. 

Now in the first place Mr. Ansted is wrong in arguing from the “ apparently un¬ 
limited depth ” of these veins in comparison with their “ limited extension in length 
and width,’' for they have been traced one or two miles, and not sunk upon more 
than the sixteenth of a mile. The Isabella lode is 600 yards long and 75 yards 
wide and no one knows how deep beneath the base of the hill along the top of 
which its outcrop rides. Its depth may not be any greater than its width, to say 
nothing of its length. If it be not an originally horizontal precipitation of the age 
of the magnesian schists in which it stands now vertical, there is no difficulty in con¬ 
ceiving it to be a crevice gaping upwards and filled in from above. Mr. Ansted 
reveals a singular incompetence to argue the question here presented, when he 
writes a sentence like the following: “ These Ducktown lodes must not be con¬ 
sidered without special reference to the physical conditions of the adjacent country. 
[Of course : what geologist would think of doing so ?] They are amongst the old 
rocks of the main Alleghany chain, but not very near any large masses of igneous 
rock. [The main chain is carboniferous. But are these Silurian, Huronian or Law- 
rentian ? that is the only question.] The general form of the ground as far as 
regards the ranges parallel to the main axis, is unquestionably due to elevatory 
causes [of course : for all the rocks stand on end or roll in an endless series of 
waves], and not to denudation [!] ; but it would be difficult to decide without very 
minute investigation, whether the transverse cuts through which the natural drain¬ 
age is carried are partially or entirely the result of weathering and aqueous action, 
or are due to transverse elevations. No faults or heaves have as yet been observed 
in the district and no cross-courses are known that intersect the gossan-lodes.” 

This extraordinary paragraph, to call it by the gentlest term we have, is followed 
by another beginning : “ No very satisfactory account,” etc , the words*which have 
already been quoted. The fact is, on the contrary, that nothing is more evident at a 
glance to the American geologists, than that the whole surface of the country under 
description has suffered as much and of the same kind of denudation as all other 
portions of the Appalachian mountain region from Quebec to Tuscaloosa. A man 
coming over from England to look about him among the relics of a world of decapi¬ 
tated anticlinals, for a month or two, stands of course bewildered and stupefied, and 
returns without receiving any very clear ideas, to the land he is accustomed to, a 
land of lodes and faults, elvans and cross crosses. But when there, he should hesi¬ 
tate to ascribe his own natural perplexities to those who have studied long and see 
clearly and feel quite at home where he was quite at fault,—to those who feel the 
ignorance involved in the very suggestion of “ transverse elevations ” between the 
“ transverse cuts ” or water-courses, however doubtingly advanced. The ribs of 
quartz rock, the planes of mica slate, the outcrop gossan of the veins, rise plainly 
before us from hillside to hillside and can be followed innumerable miles, from 
stream to stream, without a suggestion of such an idea, as cross disturbances be¬ 
tween the transverse streams. 

Here is the point,—not that Mr. Ansted reasons wrongly like other Englishmen 
about a country much unlike their own,—but that these veins were once much mort 


462 


PART II. -DIVISION II. 


elevated, when the country itself was so, and before the universal denudation took 
place, which has formed the present topography, and the outcrops as they now are. 
At that time if ever the veins received open-mouthed their precipitation from above. 
But much more probable is it that they were original deposits like the phosphatic 
magnetic iron beds of Essex county New York, and and the equally old Iron Moun¬ 
tain and Pilot Knob beds of Missouri, which no one can sketch or see a good sketch 
of without feeling that they are no true veins, or of a later date. Then, when the 
uptilt took place, when the denudation followed, when the cross streams had been 
notched out and nothing but the alluvial polishing was to do, the leeching process 
began, which has advanced to a point at w'hich our shafts and tunnels enter to take 
advantage of it. 

The reader will forgive this long discussion and its personality, for the sake of 
American science and the subject itself. The first often requires but seldom obtains 
even a feeble defence. The second needs in this division of it all the light that it 
can get, and after all there will not be too great a glare. 

The new copper mines of Carroll county Southern Virginia 
which were traced and opened after the Ducktown Tennessee 
mines were producing their feverish effect upon the market are 
well described by C. S. Richardson in the November 22 num¬ 
ber of the London Mining Journal for 1856. 

In Cocke county Tennessee, on French Broad and Big Pigeon 
rivers, the primary granite, gneiss and overlying silicious slaty 
rocks and granular limestones of the Smoky mountain dividing 
Tennessee from North Carolina may be examined best. They 
abound in veins of iron, manganese and zinc, with chalybeate 
springs. On Long creek branch of French Broad are numerous 
veins one of which furnished ore to Legion furnace (LI 272). 
On Grass Fork and on Stone’s creek ore is abundant, with black 
oxide of manganese. On the Dry Fork of Wolf creek it may be 
traced for miles in great abundance on both sides the State line. 8 

Into Georgia the North Carolina and the Tennessee belts of 
primary rocks pass over, the former among the mountains of 
Habersham county where the Sequee creek furnace and 
forge, 3 miles south of Clarksville, once operated (abandoned in 
1837), and the Mossy creek bloomary 18 miles northeast of 
Gainesville still works up brown hematite ore, although mag¬ 
netic ore is supposed to exist in the neighborhood. The Mossy 
creek bloomary 10 miles southwest of it shares its ore. This is 
the Chatahoochie iron region alluded to by Whitney and 
examined by Hodge. 

The westernmost belt of North Carolina and Polk county 

8 Trost’s Geol. Report of 1840. 



THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


463 


Tennessee (Ducktown) ores runs down into Union, 

Fannin, Murray, Walker, Cass and Dade counties ° 

Georgia. The Ivy Log creek bloomary in Union county is 
abandoned. The Hemptown creek bloomary a mile northwest 
of Morgantown in Fannin county uses 33 per cent “liver” or 
brown hematite ore. The old Aliculsie creek bloomary in 
Murray county, three miles from the Tennessee line and the 
old Armuchy creek bloomary ten miles south of Lafayette in 
Walker county are abandoned; but there still runs, on a 
branch of the Armuchy twelve miles east of Lafayette, the Clear 
creek charcoal furnace (H. 251) on mixed fossil ore of Y from 6 
miles west and brown hematite from 8 miles east. The old Look¬ 
out creek bloom ary in Dade county 3-| miles south of Trenton 
was abandoned in 1851. All these run on brown hematites. 

In Cass county the iron manufacture flourishes on primary 
mixed magnetic and brown hematite ores, the latter being out¬ 
crops of the former. The Crow bank, a vein of black oxide, 
half a mile east of the Allatoona creek furnace, and three miles 
east of the Mississippi and Atlantic railroad, yields 50 per cent 
pure iron. The Troy bank two miles west of the furnace is a 
richer but more expensive ore and therefore not at present used. 
Brown hematite 30 per cent ores from Red bank, a mile west of 
the furnace, and Cooper’s bank, half a mile north of it are used 
to mix.—On Stamp creek are four furnaces Etowah, Pool, 
Union and Lewis’s, the positions of which can be seen by 
reference to the Guide Nos. 246, 247, 248, 249. These use not 
only black oxide and brown hematite but red specular oxide 
ore. Etowah gets a 60 per cent 70 per cent ore 4 miles south¬ 
west. Pool and Union get a 60 per cent red oxide from the 
Big spring bank 3 miles w T est of the former and 2 miles north¬ 
west of the latter, half a mile southeast of which (nearer to 
Union) is a vein of 70 per cent black oxide. Peachtree bank 
3 miles northwest and Wild bank (abandoned for the present) 
3 miles north of Pool, yield red oxide ores. Lewis’s furnace 
has its own 60 per cent “ Big bank ” 2 miles northwest of it, 
but uses also the 75 per cent ore from the Peachtree bank 2 
miles w r est of it.—On Pettit’s creek 2£ miles north of the rail¬ 
way station the Cartersville furnace gets a 56 per cent ore from 
Foster’s, Fullmore’s and Giton’s banks about 3 miles northeast, 
and Milner’s 2£ miles east. 


464 


PART IT.-DIVISION II. 


Of the Cass county iron region in Georgia Mr. Hodge writes from New York, 
May 9, 1846 to Hon. John H. Lumpkin: The iron ore beds of Cass county, 
Georgia, are found in the Allatoona hills near the Etowah river, and may be traced 
in a northeast and southwest direction along these hills for about forty miles. 
Some of the beds are seen to continue almost without interruption for twelve miles. 
They come to the surface at intervals, and appear as solid rock ledges; and their 
position is also marked by piles of loose ore following the range of the beds, evi¬ 
dently derived from those lying in place beneath the surface. The quantity of 
ore in this region is incalculable. The loose pieces cover entirely the surface of 
some of the knolls and hills, and it seems that these are often wholly composed of 
the solid beds. On the top of one high hill which I examined was evidently the 
outcrop of an immense bed of the ore. The pieces, most of them weighing a few 
tons each, lay piled one upon another, forming a rocky mound along the ridge, that 
I could not cross on horseback. Every mass was Hematite of the very best quality; 
the thickness of the bed measured by pacing across this outcrop, was at least 150 
feet, perhaps much more. 

This variety of ore is the most common in this region. Though it yields a less 
percentage than the heavy magnetic ores, and the specular ores, it is preferred to 
these on account of the greater facility of smelting it, and the very superior quality 
of iron it makes. It is the same ore with that which makes the famous “Juniata” 
iron, the “Salisbury” iron and the “ Stockbridge ” iron, all which are the best 
adapted for heavy castings, and are well knowm for the soft and tough bar iron 
also into which they are refined. Several large pieces I brought with me of this 
Georgia hematite so nearly resemble the ore from the famous bed at West Stock- 
bridge, that the most critical examination cannot detect any difference between 
them. 

But this ore is in Georgia also associated with the other harder varieties, into 
which it seems to pass; and among these I found beds of a rich and very pure 
specular iron ore. This is the kind known as the Iron Mountain ore of Missouri, 
and is also found and extensively wrought at Rossie, St. Lawrence county New 
York. 

Of the wonderful profusion of these ores, and of their richness I can unhesita¬ 
tingly speak in the highest terms; and the best varieties and largest quantities I 
saw w r ere among those wdthin two or three miles of the Etowah river where it is 
crossed by the railroad. I have visited almost all the great iron ore deposits of the 
United States; have explored the beds of the Iron mountains of Missouri; but 
have never been so impressed by any exhibition of ore as by the mines of the 
Etowah district. They pass along within from one to five miles of the great Lime¬ 
stone formation of Cass county, so that this essential material for flux in the mak¬ 
ing of iron will everywhere be conveniently supplied. They are near a rich agri¬ 
cultural district, where provisions can be afforded at the cheapest rates; and yet 
they extend into the heart of the Allatoona chain of hills, where the air in the heat 
of summer is most salubrious, and the climate, like that of the tablelands of 
Mexico, perfectly healthy. Where the Etowah river has broken through these hills, 
the high ledges of rock still resist its progress, and a succession of falls over these 
furnish abundant water power for the most extensive works. 

A large portion of this region is covered wfith a heavy growth of good, hard 
wood timber—the original unbroken forest. The best of charcoal was offered at 
the furnace in 18-12 at 3^ cents per bushel. 

The high rate of transportation to the coast, and the inconvenience of effecting 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


4G5 


repairs to machinery in a country where there are no large machine Georgia, 
shops are the causes that have prevented these great resources 
from having been largely developed by the investment of northern capital. These 
obstacles were too serious to be encountered by private enterprise in a remote dis¬ 
trict, when the product of the mines was to look to a market already supplied from 
nearer sources.—In another report Mr. Hodge goes on :— 

The iron mines of Georgia are in its northern counties 
among the spurs of the Alleghany mountains. The Blue Bidge 
comes into the State from North Carolina at its northeastern 
corner, and passes on towards Alabama in a southwest direction. 
The country bordering this ridge on the southern side is a moun¬ 
tainous region of primary rocks. Habersham and Lumpkin 
counties are made up of high parallel ridges and deep narrow 
valleys, lying for the most part in a northeast and southwest 
direction. The peculiar parallelism and straight course of the 
Alleghanies may be seen here as in the middle States; but their 
more broken character, the greater raggedness of their outline, 
the impetuous nature of their streams dashing over high ledges 
of rock, and the clearness of their waters testify to different geo¬ 
logical formations than the stratified shales and sandstones of 
which they are composed in Pennsylvania. It is in these 
outliers of the main ridge of the Alleghanies that the metamor- 
phic slates and quartz rock are found, which are productive in 
gold ores ; and frequently in near proximity to these are 
deposits of hematite iron ore of extraordinary extent. In 
the gneiss also are found veins of magnetic iron ore of great 
purity, as at Cane creek, near Dahlonega; but to these little 
attention has been directed. Specimens of this ore, which I 
have seen at the mint at Dahlonega were very rich and remark¬ 
able for their strong magnetic power. Specular ores too, 
like those of the Iron mountain in Missouri, are found in con¬ 
siderable quantity in the vicinity of some of the hematite beds, 
which I shall allude to again. 

The three furnaces in this State are situated in this region and 
are supplied with hematite ores only. The first is in Habersham 
county three miles below Clarksville. The ores are said to be 
abundant, and the expenses of manufacture very low. Locali¬ 
ties of the same are of frequent occurrence from this point down 
the course of the Chattalioochie river; but none of them are 
turned to any account. 

Another range of them of much greater consequence is found 

30 


466 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


in tlie Allatoona liills along the Etowah river in Cass and 
Cherokee counties. And as a railroad already passes through 
this iron district, it gives to it an importance that will lead me 
to describe with some minuteness of detail its resources. 

The northwestern counties of Georgia, which include the ter¬ 
ritory purchased of the Cherokee Indians, was divided when 
apportioned among the inhabitants of the State in 1832 and 1833, 
into four sections / these were subdivided into districts of nine 
miles square each, and the districts either into 40 acre or 160 
acre lots. After this plan the country was surveyed, mapped, 
and each lot numbered. Afterwards the counties were formed. 
Plate — is a map of Cherokee county and a part of Cass county, 
the former lying in the second section, and the latter in the 
third. The districts are represented and numbered with large 
figures; the smaller figures occasionally noticed are the numbers 
of particular lots in the districts. 

The Allatoona hills lie mostly in the southeastern corner of 
Cass county. They extend in a northeasterly direction towards 
the Blue Ridge, of which they are probably the continuation. 
The Etowah river, a broad shallow stream, passes in a westerly 
direction through the southern part of Cass county, breaking 
obliquely through these hills. Obstructed in its course, it falls 
over ledges of rock producing water-power, which has been 
improved by dams between the mountains from 300 to 400 feet 
long. The railroad from Augusta, through the Cherokee 
county into Tennessee, crosses the Etowah in the midst of these 
hills. In its progress through tlie northern part of Cobb county, 
it passes through mica slate, hornblende rock and quartz rock 
which dip steeply towards the east; the surface is rolling, but 
not rough. But as it approaches the Allatoona hills, the country 
is much broken; high embankments across deep hollows are 
frequent and cuts through the solid rock, in one instance to the 
depth of 90 feet and 300 or 400 yards in length, are found 
necessary for the road. These cuts are in talcose slate, which 
lies inclined south of east at an angle of about 75°. Quartz 
rock, hornblende slate and greenstone alternate with the talcose 
slate; and near the greenstone gold is extracted from the quartz 
veins. Limestone is found in beds in these rocks, and near the 
limestone, iron ore. 

Be von d the Allatoona hills to the west and north is an exten- 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


467 


sive limestone country commencing about 4 miles 
from the Etowah river. Nearly the whole of Cass eor g ia - 
county is formed of this rock and it spreads out into Floyd 
and Murray counties. From its position adjacent to the 
metamorpliic rocks of the Allatoona hills and bordering on 
the other side the newer secondary strata, which over the 
line in Tennessee reach up to the coal formation, this is proba¬ 
bly no other than the Trenton or Birdseye limestone of the New 
York groups. From what information I could obtain it would 
seem that the eastern boundary line of this formation passes 
nearly north through the western parts of Cherokee and Gilmer 
counties into Tennessee. 

The iron ores are found on both sides the Etowah river. To 
the southwest they extend into Paulding county and in the 
other direction through Cherokee county, the furthest place on 
which I have observed them being between Sharp mountain 
creek and Long Swamp creek in the northeastern comer of this 
county. So far as explored, their range is found to be full forty 
miles, and their course about northeast and southwest. 

The first locality I shall describe is that of Pumpkin-vine or 
Toicn creek in the southeastern corner of Cass county. For a 
mile or two before this stream enters the Etowah, it has left the 
high hills of the Allatoona range, and flows through rich bottom 
lands, wdiich widen out about its mouth into very broad and 
fertile meadows. Here, along the Etowah, are extensive planta¬ 
tions which produce large supplies of corn and grain. Up the 
creek, almost into the midst of the mountains, the stream is 
skirted on one side or the other with similar bottom lands, but 
covered when I saw them in 1842 with a heavy growth of pop¬ 
lar, beech, oak, walnut, chestnut, ash, hickory etc. all of the 
first growth, and much of it very large timber. The width of 
these bottoms three miles above the mouth of the creek is three- 
quarters of a mile. On each side, the hills rise to the height of 
from 200 to 400 feet. They are composed of talcose slate, 
hornblende slate, quartz rock and some limestone and iron ore. 
Their sides and summits, though covered with wood, are stony 
and barren. The slates with quartz veins, some of them aurifer¬ 
ous, occur on the south side the creek; on the north side the 
hills are more generally quartz rock with beds of silicious lime¬ 
stone. Near this limestone are found the beds of hematite. 


468 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


They crop out in the sides of the hill next the creek and are 
seen in large deposits of unknown extent. The most important 
localities are on the 40-acre lots numbered 1038 and 1040 near 
the canal. On the former the ore and limestone are found near 
together and more convenient to the proposed site of a blast 
furnace at the termination of the canal, which was dug by 
Mr. Neleigh, the proprietor of this place, to give good water 
power. 

On 1040 is a knoll around which the canal winds, which con¬ 
tains a very large supply of the very best quality of hematite. 
A trench sunk below the soil laid bare a ledge of this ore its 
whole length of about 30 yards without affording any indication 
of its limits. The ore much resembles the best of the West Stock- 
bridge ore in Massachusetts. It has the same loose shelly structure 
covered with reddish-yellow rust on one side, the compact cho¬ 
colate and black pure ore within, and on the other side it is 
covered with projecting stalactites of ore. In quantity, quality 
and convenience of ore this locality seems to leave nothing to be 
desired, and it is, besides, within two miles of the railroad. 

The limestone when burned produces a pretty white and 
strong lime; it is evidently silicious, and is said to have made 
hydraulic cement, having been used by the engineers on the 
railroad for this purpose. Near the ledges of it the quartz rock 
appears flinty and ferruginous; rotten veins traverse it contain¬ 
ing sulphate of barytes, often well crystallized. On lot No. 970, 
near the railroad, is a high hill of quartz rock, on which is found 
a close-grained peroxide of iron of apparently great purity. It 
will probably prove an ore to work with the hematites. The 
quantity is evidently great, but no attempts have been made to 
ascertain it. This is the ore before referred to as resembling the 
Iron mountain ore of Missouri. 

The water power of Pumpkin-vine creek cannot be depended 
upon for extensive works. By means of the canal, which is 
nearly a mile long, a fall is obtained of about 14 feet; and with 
this head there is enough water for one furnace almost the whole 
of the year. Higher up the stream are falls of more certain 
dependence, but not in so convenient a situation to the ore. 
Wood for charcoal can be obtained in the bottoms and on the 
hills in large quantities for many years to come at very low 
puces. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


469 


The situation is healthy, except where the bot¬ 
toms are overflowed or low lands are cleared and ^ eor S ia - 
the timber left to rot upon them. Among the hills or by the 
swifter running streams no region in the United States is more 
salubrious or enjoys a more delightful climate. Its elevation 
above the sea saves it from the excessive summer heats of the 
lower parts of the State, and its southern latitude gives it tem¬ 
perate and pleasant winters. These advantages together with 
the fertility of a large portion of the country have led to it a 
considerable population, who have built up many thriving towns 
and established manufactories of various sorts, so that the 
country more resembles Hew England than any portion of the 
southern agricultural States. 

The railroad passing through this region is a branch of the 
Georgia railroad, uniting with it at Atalanta. The whole dis¬ 
tance through to Augusta is about 200 miles. In the other direc¬ 
tion the road passes into Tennessee by two branches. By the 
western one to Chattanooga access is had to the bituminous 
coal field, which is about 80 miles from the Etowah. If wood 
were likely to be scarce, this might be considered of some con¬ 
sequence to the iron mines. But for a long time abundant sup¬ 
plies of charcoal may be depended upon; and it is besides very 
questionable whether the bituminous coal of these southern 
fields is not too highly charged with bitumen to be economically 
used in the manufacture of iron. 

The deposits of iron ore approach the river on its northern 
side about two miles above the railroad bridge. Here the moun¬ 
tains come down to the waters edge, and the only paths back 
from the river are up the narrow valleys of the runs. In these 
the rock of the mountain is exposed to view. It is a hard com¬ 
pact silicious rock, lying in strata of different thicknesses, some¬ 
times the layers being very thin and at others heavy blocks. 
They dip to the south of east. Associated with this rock are the 
beds of hematite ; they crop out like any other ledge, and their 
extent cannot be estimated. These ledges near their contact 
with the quartz rock are more or less mixed with it and much 
of the ore is then too silicious for use. But vast quantities are 
found covering the sides and top of one of the mountains, ex¬ 
tending more than a mile, that are of greater purity, and would 
probably work well in the blast furnace. The locality is very 


470 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


convenient to the rapids on the river. A bed of limestone is 
said to occur near the ore and the river in the quartz rock. 
Yeins of sulphate of barytes are common. The water power 
here is very great and is never known to fail. At this locality 
is found the singular flexible quartz or sandstone noticed also in 
South Carolina. Strips of it or layers are found in the common 
quartz rock, which on being removed bend in the hand, as 
though they were breaking apart. It is found also with the 
same associates of iron ores and gold as well as of diamonds at 
the Peak of Itacolumi in Brazil; and M. Eschwege has pro¬ 
posed for it the name of itacolumite. 

In the vicinity of the furnaces the rock is a coarse mixture, 
like a breccia, of quartz and feldspar. It is a rough looking 
rock and cropping out everywhere gives a barren aspect to the 
hills. Beyond the furnaces to the northeast the ore is found in 
even greater quantities than before noticed. Upon a high knob 
eight miles from the river is a greater show of it than I have 
seen at the famous Iron mountain in Missouri. The hill, which 
is nearly as high as the “ Pilot Knob ” near the Iron mountain, 
and which may well be called the Iron knob, has upon its sum¬ 
mit the outcrop of a bed of hematite fifty paces across, the rocks 
of ore piled upon each other, forming so rough a path that it 
cannot be crossed on horseback. Below it the sides of the hill 
are covered almost wholly with ore. The bed is interstratified 
with the coarse brecciated feldspar and quartz, dipping 75° or 
80° east by south. The rock beneath it is of much finer texture 
than that above. Towards the river the bed may be traced a 
mile without losing it beneath the soil; and in the other direc¬ 
tion I was told it had been followed without interruption two 
miles further. It probably goes to the river, being on the range 
of beds there, which would make its length no less than ten 
miles. The quality of the ore varies at different points along its 
range, some of it being coarse, and some the very best quality 
of brown hematite. At least two other beds have been found 
near it, which pursue a parallel course with it. The ore in 
these varies in quality, but everywhere the beds are of enormous 
thickness. Manganese ore is found occasionally under the iron 
ore, but I cannot speak as to its purity. Beds of limestone are 
often close to the hematite beds. Without then being aware of 
the almost universal proximity of this rock to the ore in the 


THE PRIMARY TRON ORES. 


471 


northern States 1 find noted the fact of its occur- jyj-* ggo 
ring “ very near the ore, of compact structure and 
white and blue colors. It is probably over the ore but this 
is not ascertained. It does not always accompany it, as for 
instance in the Iron knob.” 

I again met with beds of hematite on what proved to he the 
continuation of this range about the corner of where districts 
3, 4, 13 and 14 meet, near Sharp mountain creek. Thecpiantity 
here too upon Sharp mountain, within six miles of the river, is 
enormous, and the quality of much of it is good botryoidal and 
stalactical hematite. I remarked a change in the character of 
the quartz rock as it approaches these beds of ore. From a 
milky white color, it becomes glassy and of red and yellow lines; 
it then contains lumps and seams of iron ore. The sand on the 
hillsides and in the road abounds with ferruginous particles. 
Some of it is good black sand for desk use. Mica slate is seen 
among the loose stones, and the scales of mica shine in the sands. 
Rich grass grows abundantly in the woods. 

One of the largest beds of ore is a mile west of Sharp moun¬ 
tain creek, four miles above its mouth. Falls or u Shoals” on 
the creek are within a mile and a half of this bed, and close to 
another deposit. On lot 338, 4th district, is a hill covered with 
hematite, apparently 100 yards across, and easily traced more 
than a mile in a northeast direction, between Sharp moun¬ 
tain creek and Long Swamp creek. Other parallel beds occur 
near by. All these are north of the limits of the map of this 
iron ore district. Within a few miles of these localities, on the 
head branches of Long Swamp creek, are beds of white marble. 


The magnetic and specular ores of Missouri have become 
matters of celebrity and subjects of considerable discussion. 
They rise with the Lower Silurian and Huronian rocks in a geo¬ 
logical island, a hundred miles southwest of St. Louis, from 
beneath the surrounding Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous 
strata, and are separated therefore geographically from the pri¬ 
maries of the Atlantic seaboard, Canada and the Lake Superior 
region by continental stretches of these later formations, under 
which however of course they might be found, at the depth ot 
from one to five miles beneath the surface of all the western 
States. This island is also separated from the primaries of the 



472 


PART II.-DIVISION II, 


Black hills and Bocky mountains by immense distances, covered 
not only by the same but by still later formations, Trias ? Lias, 
Cretaceous and Tertiary. The Missouri primary ores will there¬ 
fore always be a special depot of wealth under the protection 
of the politics and in the hands of the industry and skill of that 
State, fearing no rivalry, asking no tariff, but steadily concen¬ 
trating about itself the iron manufacturers of an empire west of 
the Mississippi river. 

Pilot Knob, against the north base of which two furnaces at present stand and 
from which they obtain their ore, is “581 feet high, covers an area of 360 square 
acres, and contains at least 14,000,000 tons of silicious specular iron ore (see Swal¬ 
low’s Geol. Report), of steel grey fracture,” and according to Prof. F. A. Kayser 
containing protoxide of iron 84.85, silica 10.41, alumina 5.64. It differs somewhat 
in appearance from that at Iron mountain, and unlike the latter exhibits a series of 
well-marked strata divided by thin layers of slate. The ore is mined at a point 
about 400 feet above the furnaces and is let down to the latter in cars, over an in¬ 
clined railway, the upper end of which rests upon a solid floor of ore, and from this 
upward can be distinctly traced the out-crops of five massive strata of ore forming, 
upon the northeast and east sides of the knob, successive series of picturesque wea¬ 
ther-worn pinnacles. These plates of ore one above another decrease of course in 
area as one ascends, the last forming a small, irregular, turreted mass of iron upon 
the summit of the hill, the whole sides of which are covered with a thrifty growth 
of trees, flowers, moss and ferns. 9 There can be no doubt of the sedimentary origin 
of these valuable deposits nor of their relationship to the same azoic or Huronian 
System to which belong the ores of North Carolina, the Adirondae regions of New 
York, and Lake Superior. It is a great mistake to suppose the Iron mountain of 
Missouri a conical peak with steep sides covered with blocks of nearly pure iron (as 
it has been described by inaccurate observers), and perhaps consisting entirely of 
such loose blocks throughout as some ignorant speculators have suggested. On 
the contrary it is merely a gently sloping table slowly rising from the level of the 
furnaces to an elevation no greater than 150 feet, and partially divided into two. 

9 J. Lesley, jun. 1857. The Pilot Knob differs considerably (says Whitney) from the Iron 
mountain in character. It is much higher, by estimate 650 feet above its base, and is mainly 
composed of a dark silicious rock, distinctly bedded, and dipping to the south at an angle 
of 25° or 30°. For about two-thirds of the distance to the summit, the quartz rock predomL 
nates; above that the iron is found in heavy beds alternating with silicious matter. Some 
of these beds are very wide, and made up of nearly pure micaceous and specular ore. The 
richest ores show a very evident slaty structure, differing in this respect entirely from 
those of the Iron mountain, which are compact and without any noticeable cleavage. 
The summit of the Pilot Knob is ragged and bare, except -where covered by moss, and 
forms a conspicuous object in the distance ; hence the name. The cost of making blooms 
was stated to me as $30 per ton. The ore cost 20 cents a ton delivered at the roasting- 
heap ; that of Shepherd’s mountain cost 55 cents. The woodland is owned by the com¬ 
pany; 35 cents a cord is paid for cutting, and charged to the coalers, w T ho are paid from 
2| to 3 cents a bushel for the coal delivered at the furnace. There are about 300 persons 
employed at this place and at the Iron mountain. The abundance and purity of the ore 
in the vicinity can hardly be surpassed ; and it will eventually be carried in large quan¬ 
tities to the Mississippi and mixed with other ores to be smelted by hard coal. At 
present, charcoal is abundant and cheap. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


473 


This gradual rise, the steep outcrop escarpment under its highest JVIiSSOUri. 
point facing the syenite and porphyry hills beyond, and the often 
thickly scattered blocks which cover the slope, concur to show that it is a sedi¬ 
mentary stratum like the layers of the Pilot Knob, of a definite and certainly extra¬ 
ordinary depth or thickness, and perhaps even underlaid by a series of similar strata. 

Iron Mountain in Dr. Litton’s Report to Prof. Swallow, State Geologist (see 
Geological Report, 1856, part 1, p. 155), is called 228 feet high and 500 acres in 
extent, containing 230 millions of tons of specular ore of igneous origin, enlarging 
downwards , every foot in depth of which will yield 3 millions of tons. No part of 
this calculation can be relied on as approaching the truth, as it starts with a sup¬ 
position that the whole 228 feet of mountain (or more properly hill) is solid ore, 
and concludes with a supposition that the ore is a volcanic ejection and increases in 
size towards the centre of the earth. Whereas the ore is undoubtedly a stratum 
nearly horizontal and merely plating or protecting the hill. The top of the Iron 
mountain is 900 feet above St. Louis, and about 260 above the surrounding country, 
and its area with some smaller deposits around it about 500 acres. The ore is a 
micaceous oxide and when fractured has a bright metallic appearance and seems to 
be very uniform in quality and richness whether in place or detached. It yields 
from 55 to 60 per cent in the blast furnace, is easily smelted, making red-short but 
very superior iron. The surface is literally paved with huge boulders of ore, and in 
the absence of these with disintegrated ore. Successive layers of pebbles of ore 
have been removed from small plots here and there, but no attempt has been made 
to open a quarry or mine in the main body. On one of the adjoining spurs and 
near the upper bank of the furnaces a breast of 40 feet has been opened for their 
use, presenting a massive front untraversed by a seam of either earth or rock, and 
with but a few inches of debris covering the surface of it. On the lower bank or at 
the level of the casting-houses an artesian well has gone down 180 (one hundred 
and eighty) feet in “ solid ore.” Pilot Knob six miles further south and 400 feet 
high above the level of the surrounding country shows no ore on its base and sides 
but large boulders are piled up at the top tapering to a summit of a couple of acres 
in area. This ore is let down by a series of inclined planes, of different grades in 
the same line, to the furnaces on the level below. It is not as pure as that of the 
Iron mountain and does not yield as well in the blast furnaces and is more refrac¬ 
tory. Nevertheless, I question whether there is a deposit of iron ore on the globe 
embraced within equal limits that contains as much mineral of the kind. Situated 
within 50 miles of the Mississippi and not much further from the coal of southern 
Illinois, it requires but little forecast to estimate the vast proportions that the iron 
trade will assume in that section of the country in a few years. 1 The mode of 
occurrence (says Whitney) of the eruptive ores in the azoic has already been 
described, and the Iron mountain alluded to as a remarkable instance of a mass 
of this character. It is a flattened dome-shaped elevation, of about 200 feet above 
its base, and forms the western extremity of a ridge of reddish feldspathic porphyry, 
which rises one or two hundred feet higher than the knob of iron ore, and stretches 
to the east for a mile or two. The surface of the Iron mountain is entirely covered 
with loose pieces of ore, which become more and more conspicuous toward the sum¬ 
mit, on account of the small quantity of soil and vegetation covering them, as well 
as from the fact that the masses of ore themselves grow larger and more angular. 
The summit is covered with moss-grown blocks, some of which are many tons in 


1 Charles B. Forney of Lei anon, Pennsylvania, August, 1858. 




PART II.-DIVISION II. 


weight, piled together in the greatest confusion. Nowhere about the mountain can 
the rock or ore be seen in place. On the west end of the hill a considerable exca¬ 
vation has been made for the purpose of getting out the ore. A vertical cut was 
carried to the depth of 8 feet, and a shaft sunk 7 feet further; at the bottom, a bed 
of red clay, destitute of boulders, was struck and penetrated for one foot only, 
without reaching the solid ore. It appears, therefore, that the bed of loose masses 
covering the side of the mountain is at this point at least 15 feet thick; it is here 
made up entirely of small, somewhat rounded pieces of ore, packed together with¬ 
out any other substance than a little bright-red ferruginous clay between them. 
The ore requires no selecting or washing, as there are no foreign boulders or stones 
mixed with it. Flux is abundant at a distance of half a mile, costing 25 cents at 
the tunnel-head per ton of iron produced. Charcoal, the only fuel used, costs 3£ 
cents a bushel; the company owning the woodland, and paying that sum for burn¬ 
ing and hauling to the furnace. About 110 bushels of coal are required to make 
one ton of iron. The ore costs 80 cents a ton, mined, roasted, broken up, and 
delivered at the tunnel-head. 2 All three furnaces at the Iron mountain use the 
same ore and blow with a strong blast. The surface ore is selected for making 
malleable iron and castings, and the mined ore for cold-blast mill and hot-blast 
foundry iron. The variety of analyses of these ores is remarkable. Prof. Collum 
of Sainte Etienne in France, calls it a 71 per cent ore. Two other analyses from 
the same laboratory are as follows:— 

Iron Mountain Ore. Pilot Knob Ore. 


Iron 

• 

• 

. 65.0 

Oxygen . 

• 

• 

. 29.0 

Silica 

• 

• 

3.5 

Alumina. 

• 

# 

2.9 


y =100.4 

i 

j 


y =ioo 


66.0 'l 
26.0 ! 

5.0 

3.0 J 

respecting which analyses F. A. Kayser remarks that the excess of oxygen (27.86 
oxygen being the maximum equivalent of 65 iron) proves that “silica” and “alu¬ 
mina” should read silicon and aluminum, and the analyses themselves as fol¬ 
lows :— 

1 


Perox. iron 

. 46.69 ] 


84.85 

Protox. iron . 

. 40.97 | 

1 

L =100.39 

• • 

Silica 

7.28 j 

f 

10.41 

Alumina . 

5.45 J 

1 

5.64 


;■ 


: 100.90 


Dr. Litton (Swallow’s Report p. 78) gives peroxide iron 99.33, silica 0.66=Iron 
69.55. 3 Iron mountain ore, from Missouri, afforded E. Harrison Fe 68.95, O 27.00, 
Sand, etc. 3.07 with a trace of manganese=99.02 the composition of hematite 3?e. 4 
Other specular ore beds are noticed in the same report as exposed near the Pilot 
Knob, as for example the Bogy or Buford ore bed, Town. 33 R. 3 east-northeast i, 
Sec. 24—Big Bogy mountain southeast J, Sec. 13; and Russel mountain, east 
Sec 3. , 

Shepherd Mountain ore, specular and magnetic (the specular greatly predomi¬ 
nating with 2 per cent of silex and alumina and no other foreign ingredient, is de¬ 
scribed as occurring in vertical veins from 1 to 14 feet thick, cutting through 
porphyry in various directions. (Letton’s Rep. p. 81.) So in Town. 33, R north 
£, Sec. 2 are several veins of specular ore nearly vertical, the largest one foot thick 


2 Metallic Wealth, p. 480. 3 Proc. Boston S. N. H. 1858, p. 295. 

4 Bulletin Amer. Iron Assoc., 1858. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


475 


cutting through porphyry in a nearly meridional direction. Here !M!issOUri. 
an old furnace was once in operation. 

Iii Phelps county the Maramec furnaces, situated south of the 
southwest branch of the Pacific railroad and fifty miles south of 
Hermann on the Missouri river, use a peculiar magnetic ore, 
mined from a hill lying one-third of a mile west. “ The furnace 
is only run enough to supply the forge with metal, as the blooms 
must be hauled 60 miles to Grey’s Summit (Pacific railroad) sta¬ 
tion. This fall, however, there will be 20 miles of the South 
Branch railroad in running order which will cut oft' that much, 
and orders have been issued to complete the road to our station, 
6 miles from here, as fast as possible.” 6 This ore is pronounced 
in the late report of Prof. Swallow to the Southwest Branch 
Bailroad Company page 30 6 the oldest known and perhaps most 
valuable deposit in this county ( Crawford) situated half a mile 
from the Maramec on the west side ; opened as early as 1826 by 
Massey and James; furnace completed 1829 and operating at 
intervals until now ; ore rich compact specular, wrought by the 
Messrs. James, in large rounded or angular masses (inexhausti¬ 
ble) which when broken exhibit cavities filled with small, beau¬ 
tiful, iridescent fibrous crystals of iron, and sometimes transpa¬ 
rent crystals of quartz. In some parts this ore is embedded in 
soft purplish soapy hematite sold largely for paint. 7 The sand¬ 
stone in the neighborhood contains masses of iron pyrites. 

In Crawford county Dr. Shumard reports specular oxide with 
brown hematite and sulphuret of iron. The two first occur to¬ 
gether in SE of HE qr. sec. 5 T 37 R4 W, thickly strewn over 
the surface and probably existing in workable quantities. At 
Bleeding Hill (according to Mr. Engelmann) near the eastern 
line of the county just south of Maramec river, is a rich deposit 
of specular oxide of excellent quality, two shafts having been 
sunk through thirty-seven feet of red clay and comminuted 
chert, encountering a 4 foot bed of soft purple iron ore, greasy, 
like the paint ore of the Maramec iron works;—In NW of sec. 13 
T 37 B 7, specular ore abounds with pseudomorplious crystals of 
pyrites ; and in SE of SW qr. sec. 32 T 35 B 5,—sec. 4 T 37 
B 3 —and other places.—In sec. 32 T 37 B 8 Engelmann exa- 


6 Wm. James, Corr. to Amer. Iron Assoc. May 8, 1858. 8 St. Louis, 1859. 

7 Probably magnesian and an additional evidence of the derivation of the specular iron, 

ores from the dissolution of the rocks in places. 


476 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


mined an extensive deposit of specular ore like the Maramec 
bed.—In N¥ qr. sec. 27 T 36 R 7, large masses of specular and 
brown iron ore abound on the surface and much good argilla¬ 
ceous red hematite has been taken from a shaft 15 feet deep. 8 

In Pulaski county a large deposit of specular ore, like the Ma¬ 
ramec, was examined by Engelmann in sec. 31 T 37 R 12. A 
large deposit of brown hematite in RE qr. sec. 30 T 36 R 11 oc¬ 
curs in cherty beds of second and third magnesian limestones 
(Lower Silurian Ro. II) and on Bee Branch T 37 R 10—Sulphu- 
ret and brown hematite in sec. 9 T 38 R 13. 9 

In La Clede county fragments of specular ore and brown he¬ 
matite are observed in small quantities in many places. 1 


In Wisconsin* Primaries begin to appear (going north) on 
the Upper Mississippi and Black and other affluent rivers, but 
are concealed over the upland by the Lower Silurian, etc. 

On the east bank of Black river near the Falls, 4 miles from 
flatboat navigation to the Mississippi and on the line of the Land 
Grant Branch railroad, is a furnace built by a German com¬ 
pany, who have made but little iron on account of the failure of 
the (Potsdam, Lower Silurian Ro. I) sandstone hearths, as well 
as one got from Amherst, Ohio ; ore magnetic and red oxide, 
two tons making one of iron ; cost of ore $1 50 delivered ; it 
needs 20 per cent of lime; pine wood abundant, hard wood in 
streaks. The quantity estimated in sight is 15 millions of tons 
on Darrow & Curtz’ land west bank and 28 millions on Iron 
Company and Telden’s mound lands east bank. 


Analysis by 1 
Dr. C. T. [ 
Jackson :— 


Red Oxide. Specular and Magnetic. 

'Peroxide Iron 67.50 (=47.27 metal) 64.00 (=44.82 metal) 
Silica 26.75 36.00 

| Ox. Mang. 3.65 

l Water 1.50 


The ore occurs in gneissoid (Huronian) rocks overlain noncon- 
formably by horizontal Potsdam sandstone with lingulae, foot¬ 
prints and trilobites ; near granite, syenite, trap, mica slates and 
cliloritic slates, up through which last two the great red ore 
masses rise from 6 to 40 feet wide ; an exposure of black oxide 
highly magnetic 45 feet high dipping 75° southeast is seen lower 
down. (See full account on p. 28 of Daniels’ Geological Report.) 


8 St. Louis, 1859. 


9 Same report. 


1 Same report. 





THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


477 


Nothing can be more satisfactory than the prox- , 
imity of these same ores and rocks here, in "Wisconsin. 

northern New York and in North Carolina; ncr can a more 
satisfactory demonstration be thought of for their sedimentary 
origin during a single geological epoch. 

In Northern Wisconsin, the magnetic-iron beds of the Penokie 
Range are described by Col. Charles Whittlesey, in Owens’ 
Report of Iowa, 1852, page 144 to 147 as follows: 


The most easterly appearance of magnetic iron which I observed was in fissile 
black slate about four miles west of the Montreal Trail, along which the Section No. 
4, W, is made. The bed lies back of the trappose range, about sixteen miles from 
the Lake, in a protrusion of metamorphic slates, the argillaceous portions merely 
tinged with iron. About four miles along the strike of the beds, southwest by west, 
the bed was seen by Mr. Randall, in 1848, in the Fourth Principal Meridian in 
Township 44° north, eighteen miles from the Lake. From thence I and my assist¬ 
ant, Mr. Beesly, an active woodsman, and faithful and acute observer, traced it at 
moderate intervals, along the uplift, to the west end of “ Lac des Anglais,” or about 
fifteen miles, to where the range terminates. 2 Here the metamorphic slates, that 
first show themselves between the Montreal river and the Montreal Trail, on the 
east, sink beneath the level of the country, and are replaced by syenitic rocks. By 
examining the Sections Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, W, attached to this Report, the position 
of the iron-bearing rocks will be found to be the same in each ; and the details of 
the rocky beds above and below the iron are also the same, so that we may with 
confidence pronounce it to be a continuous bed from the meridian westward to Lac 
des Anglais. Its thickness, richness and value vary very much; but we found it 
more or less developed whenever we crossed the range, and could get a view of the 
rock. 

The geological relations of the iron-bearing strata are exhibited in the two follow¬ 
ing sections, the first taken near the trail that passes over the Pewabic Range, 
between the Forks of the Tyler branch of Bad river; the second, south of Lac des 
Anglais. 



d , d. Drift. 

c. Slaty magnetic iron, fifty feet. 
b. Compact and slaty quartz. 
a. Talcose slate. 


d , d. Drift. 

c. Iron-bed twenty-five to sixty feet. 
b. Quartz, thirty feet. 
a. Hornblende and slaty quartz. 


On the Pewabic Range, the strike of the beds is east by north; the dip north by 
west, 8CP to 85°. The beds of quartz are of great thickness—two hundred to two 

2 There being but one surveyed line in the Bad river country, the distances are of 
course by approximate estimation. 



4 78 


rAKT II.-DIVISION II. 


hundred and fifty feet. Near the junction of the quartz and talcose slate, the latter 
assumes the aspect of novaculite. The iron-bed is schistose in its structure, and is 
composed of magnetic oxide, sometimes alternating with beds of quartz. The total 
thickness of the talcose slate is not seen; it must be very thick, and is traversed by 
numerous veins of quartz. Its dip and strike are variable. 

The bed of magnetic iron ore south of Lac des Anglais is of extraordinary thick¬ 
ness—twenty-five to sixty feet. The dip here is northeasterly, and the layers 
variable in thickness that alternate with the quartz, which latter repose upon horn- 
blendic slate, running downwards into talcose slate. Here, as well as on the Pewabic 
Range, the dip and strike of the beds are variable. The metamorphic strata are 
very much disturbed throughout this range; but agree in having the mural faces of 
the uplifts to the south and southeast, and the dip northerly and northwesterly at 
various angles of from 5° to 60°. The effect of this irregular action is to make 
detached ridges and crests, sometimes two, three and five miles long, thrown up at 
different elevations and inclinations. 

Sometimes the iron stratum is composed of laminm of quartz and magnetic oxide, 
alternating, as at the crossing of the trail between the forks of the Tyler Branch of 
Bad river ; also south of Lac des Anglais. The proportion of iron and quartz is 
very variable, but the separation of them by mechanical means would in general 
not be difficult. The bands of ore vary from mere thin laminae to a thickness of 
twelve and even eighteen inches, presenting sometimes a black surface, contrasting 
with the white and grey color of the quartz, and sometimes a bright metallic grey 
color. The thickness of the metalliferous portion varies in the extreme from five 
and ten feet up to fifty and seventy feet; and at the passage of the main portion of 
Bad river through the range reaches two hundred and fifty feet. These exposed 
faces frequently extend beneath the surface, where, of course, no estimate can be 
formed of their entire thickness. There are many places in the mountain, west of 
Bad River, which present more than fifty feet of quartz and iron, in about equal 
proportions. In the wild and deep ravines where the Bad river breaks through the 
range, there is a cliff of slaty ore, most of which comes out in thin, oblique prisms, 
with well-defined angles and straight edges, probably three hundred feet thick, 
including what is covered by the talus or fallen portions* I estimate more than 
one-half of this face to be ore; and, in places, the beds are from ten to twelve feet 
in thickness, with very little intermixture of quartz. There are portions of it not 
slaty, but thick-bedded. The dip of the laminae is mostly north and by east, 80° 
and 85°. The convulsions that have occurred at this point have thrown a part of 
the range beyond the rest of it, to the northward, so that in crossing the river, and 
passing along the mountain to the eastward,* for several miles, the ferruginous bed, 
as well as many of the associate strata, were not visible above the general surface 
of the ground. It should, however be borne in mind, that the whole region is not 
only covered so thickly with timber that no distant views can be had without 
climbing trees, but the drift often conceals the rocks, over a large portion even 
of the elevated ridges; in addition, the rocks themselves, previous to the era of the 
drift, have been the sport of giant forces, w r hich tossed and tilted them about at 
various angles and elevations, realizing the fable of Atlas. 

Where the west branch of Tyler’s Fork crosses the chain, Hr. Beesly found the 
southerly face of the uplifts well charged with a rich, heavy ore, showing thirty, 
fifty, and seventy feet, with iron predominating over quartz. 

All the specimens we saw were of the black magnetic oxide, without any of the 
red. The surface w r as not affected by weather, the angles of the rectangular slaty 


TIIE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


479 


pieces and blocks that have fallen from the cliffs in great num- "Wisconsin, 
bers, were entire, and not rounded by time. I infer that the 
mineral contains in its composition a notable proportion of silex. The productive 
yield of such an ore can only be determined by trial in properly constructed 
furnaces, but judging of our specimens by weight, they will afford fifty to sixty 
per cent of metal. The analysis of one specimen (No. 7) by Dr. Owen, yielded 
over sixty-six per cent. 3 For present use a supply of ore may be obtained from 
the rubbish at the foot of the uplifts, in blocks and pieces already detached 
from the cliff and the accompanying quartz. Where it is not dislodged, it will 
be necessary to break the whole, and then assort it. There are cases where 
numerous particles of the oxides, both red and black (the protoxide and the 
peroxide), are disseminated through the quartz-rock above and below the regular 
beds. This might be separated by bruising and stamping—a process which the 
whole must undergo, in order to be profitably wrought in the forges. There is no 
limestone yet known in the region to be used as a flux; but there is an abundance 
of timber and water-power. There are certain proportions of iron and silex, and 
of silex and magnesia, that are easily fused. If the silex of this ore is not so exces¬ 
sive as to make it refractory, or if in practice that difficulty can be remedied by the 
use of magnesian slates, which are abundant, these mines may be wrought hereafter 
at a profit, and rival the works of Northern Europe. The magnetic ores of the 
northern part of the State of New York, that have produced iron famous for its 
strength, are also silicious.- The magnetic iron ore is freed of a portion of its silex, 
at little expense, after being bruised, by the application of magnets acting on a large 
scale upon the magnetic particles. The part which enters chemically into the ore 
forming a silicate, is not wholly cleared by working, but gives a very fine-grained 
metal, that is peculiarly good for steel. The famous Swedish iron is from beds of 
magnetic ore embraced in hornblende rocks, doubtless metamorphic, and analogous 
to the Bad river rocks. The extensive mines or rather mountains of iron ore in 
Michigan, described by Houghton, Burt, Jackson, Foster, and Whitney, are also 
magnetic, and associated with metamorphic slates. These ores are, in some cases, 
more inclined to the peroxide than the Bad river beds ; but specimens from the 
two regions are often so similar that no one would be able to separate them by the 
texture, color, or weight. The geological associations are precisely alike. In 
Michigan, as in Wisconsin, the mountains composed of tilted magnesian, hornblende, 
and silicious slates, inclose beds of ore. There, as here, on each side of the meta¬ 
morphic range, are igneous rocks, of various ages and composition, quartzose, 
granitic, syenitic, and trappose. The ores of that region have attracted attention, 
and one establishment for making bloons direct from the ore, has been in operation 
more than a year. The iron is remarkable for its solidity and toughness, keeping 
its place better than Swedish, and no more brittle. It possesses the quality of being 
worked into fine cold-drawn wire, and has been sought after by an establishment 
for manufacturing wire in Massachusetts. The blooms brought from Lake Superior 

3 The analysis of Specimen No. 7, from the slaty beds of the mountain, south of Lac 
des Anglais, gave as follows : Peroxide 51.5, Protoxide 27.1, mixed 78.6, = 56.3 iron; 
Silica 20.8, Magnesia 00.6, Alkali 0.02, Fluoric acid, a trace. The excess arises from an 
absorption of oxygen by the protoxide. The analysis is subject to revision, if time per¬ 
mits, in this particular, but the result in pure iron cannot be materially changed. This 
specimen is apparently 10 or 20 per cent below the richest pieces brought from the 
Range, and is above some of the poorer slaty specimens. 


480 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


to the Pittsburg market are, however, represented as being inclined to “red short,” 
that is liable to crack under the roller or hammer, at about a red heat. 

The position of the best exposures of ore which I saw is such as to require from 
eighteen to twenty-eight miles of transportation to reach the Lake. The nearest 
natural harbor is in Chegwomigon Bay, about twenty-five miles from the central 
part of the Penokie Range. At Montreal river, which is the nearest part of the 
coast, and from its mouth to the mouth of Bad river, there is no place where an 
artificial harbor can be made. At Bad river, there will be a good harbor when 
the sand bar at the mouth is removed and kept clear by the construction of 
piers. 

In Michigan the Lake Superior Marquette beds begin 
near the north line of Appleton and on the north side of 
the Menomonee river and continue to show themselves at 
intervals in a northerly direction for fifty miles and with an 
equal width east and west. Like the beds of northern New 
York they are chiefly magnetic and specular and present cliffs 
and ridges of nearly pure metal. No less than fourteen large 
beds have been found by the government surveyors in running 
out the township lines and seven times as many are computed 
to exist. One cliff of solid ore is 113 feet high and the ridge a 
mile and a half long. Whether or not this wonderful iron re¬ 
gion stretches across the river into Wisconsin is not yet known 
through government surveys. Slate rocks crop out upon the 
river rapids; but in one place called the Iron Cascade the 
river falls twenty feet over a bed of magnetic iron in the 
midst of a forest of hard maple, beech and other good char¬ 
coal woods. The veins of iron extend across the Montreal river 
into the Penokie mountains which skirt the Lake Superior shore. 

Jacob’s beds near the northern line of the 48 mile railroad re¬ 
servation, on the Michigan side of the Menomonee and two 
miles from the river are of specular ore in talc and clay slate, 
fine grained, blue-black, giving a red streak. It can be traced 
a mile and a half along the shore of a small lake and is exposed 
in places for a width of 100 feet; the ridge is about that high 
and shows a slaty ore for 40 rods upon its summit bearing nearly 
east and west. Four miles east of it are ledges of pale blue 
mottled marble. 

Foster describes the cliff of ore on the Peshakame 113 feet 
in perpendicular height without an accessible break for more 
than a quarter of a mile. At the top the mass was compara¬ 
tively pure for 40 feet; behind was a stratum 15 feet thick 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


481 


of quartz conglomerate and rounded grains * , _ 

r» . xi p n i i Lake Superior. 

ot iron; tiien followed specular iron again r 

for 100 feet when soil and trees prevented further view. 4 

The distinguished professor of Geology in the Paris School 
of Mines, Pivot, in his notice of Lake Superior 5 says that iron 
ores form in many places considerable masses connected with 
amphibole schists ranging like most of the rocks of this region 
east and west. [The lake itself lies east and west and the outcrops 
of the Silurian rocks take the same general course from Pew 
York to Minnesota.] They vary much in value. Some thick 
beds of oligist mixed with a little oxydule contain but 2 or 3 
per cent of the silicious amphibole while, close by, the silex will 
be so abundant in the ore as to prevent it from yielding more 
than 30 to 45 per cent of iron in the furnace. At the older mines 
(Jackson) there are trap rocks, talcose schists and amphibole 
schists, showing their primitive stratification; while to the north 
and south are massive exposures of quartz conglomerates, made 
up of pebbles of all sorts, even of iron ores, embedded in a ferru¬ 
ginous paste; so that the iron itself is evidently of a very an¬ 
cient date.* The mines lie inland, but so high (300-400 feet) 
above the lake, that the ores can readily be brought to the 
shore. These ores west of Marquette have been wrought for 
many years but not actively until the spring of 1855. A rail¬ 
way now brings the ore to Marquette for exportation to the 
furnaces and rolling mills near Detroit and to rolling mills at 
Pittsburg and elsewhere on the Ohio river waters, to be employed 
in lining and flooring the puddling furnaces, to protect the walls 
and floor of brick from the action of the puddled pig metal. Po 
doubt high furnaces, forges and steel works will spring up at 
Marquette. 

The gangue-rock is a mixture of quartz and a silicate of iron, 
alumina and lime. The iron exists in nearly all the specimens 
as an anhydrous peroxide (fer oligiste); three, containing a little 
protoxide ; one, a quantity of hydrated oxide. Po traces of sul¬ 
phur, phosphorus or arsenic were discernible; the silica is there¬ 
fore the only enemy in the furnace. 


* Report. Quoted also in Third Ann. Rept. and Collections of State Hist. Soc. of Wis¬ 
consin for 1856, p. 495. * Compare the same in New Jersey. Chapter ii. 

5 Annales des Mines, S. 5 T- x. page 411. 

31 


482 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Tlie analysis of thirteen specimens sent up to M. Rivot made 
in liis own laboratory is as follows : 


No. of 

Metallic 

Oxygen 

Gangue 

Alumina 



Specimen. 

iron. 

combined. 

rock. 

or clay. 

Lime. 

Water. 

(7) 

67.0 

26.0 

4.5 

1.5 

1.0 

0.0 

(13) 

67.0 

28.3 

2.0 

2.5 

0.0 

0.0 

(6) 

66.0 

28.0 

1.5 

2.5 

1.7 

0.0 

(8) 

64.0 

27.0 

6.5 

2.0 

0.2 

0.0 

W 

59.0 

25.0 

11.0 

1.5 

2.0 

1.1 

(1) 

58.0 

24.0 

15.0 

2.0 

0.8 

0.0 

( 5 ) 

58.0 

24.5 

11.0 

3.5 

2.5 

0.0 

(12) 

51.5 

22.0 

23.0 

2.5 

0.5 

0.0 

(9) 

50.0 

21.0 

21.5 

6.5 

0.5 

0.0 

0) 

49.0 

21.0 

26.0 

2.5 

1.0 

0.0 

(3) 

40.0 

17.3 

38.5 

2.5 

0.8 

0.0 

(11) 

38.5 

16.2 

43.0 

1.5 

1.0 

0.0 

(10) 

33.5 

14.5 

43.0 

1.5 

2.5 

4.6 


Foster and Whitney’s Second Report of 1851, page 50 to 57, 
gives as the results of their examinations the fact “ that the prin¬ 
cipal deposits of specular and magnetic iron ore are found con¬ 
nected with a belt of crystalline schists and intercalated trap- 
pean rocks, bounded on either side by a belt of granite extend¬ 
ing east and west for more than thirty miles and in its widest 
expansion exceeding eight miles ; and that, proceeding south¬ 
ward for forty miles along the eastern limits of the azoic system, 
there are numerous evidences of the existence of these ores, but 
nowhere observed to be developed on a scale of such magnitude 
or purity as in the belt above alluded to.” 

Starting from the shore of Lake Superior, near the mouth of Carp river, and pro¬ 
ceeding westwardly, near the line between townships 47 and 48, we strike the first 
deposit of iron in the northeast corner of section 1, in township 47, range 27, dis¬ 
tant about twelve miles from the lake shore. Throughout the northern, and espe¬ 
cially the northeastern, portion of this township, the iron ores exist in inexhaustible 
quantity. The only township which, in point of accessibility, and in the abundance 
and purity of these ores, compares with that just mentioned, is that adjoining on 
the east (township 47, range 26) and near its southern boundary; although in reality 
a little nearer the lake than those before alluded to, they are inferior in the purity 
of the ore. In township 47, range 28, but few deposits of iron are known to exist, 
the surface being comparatively low and covered with drift. One or two quarter 
sections on the northern boundary have been marked with the symbol of iron ( <$ ) 
in accordance with the notes of the linear surveyors, though we failed to find any 
beds of value. On the northern side of section 18, in this township, we found sped 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


483 


mens which indicated the existence of ore of a good Lake Superior, 
quality in the neighborhood. In township 47, range 29, 

several localities of ore have been observed, in a line nearly due west from the 
great deposits described as occurring in range 27. 

Proceeding still further west, in the next range (township 48, range 30), there are 
abundant traces of iron associated with hornblende rocks, along the northern shore 
ol Machi-gummi, while in the adjoining township south, on section 1, and in the ad¬ 
joining township east, on sections 6, 7 and 12, on the borders of the Machi-gamig 
river, these deposits are largely developed and possess a considerable degree of pu¬ 
rity. It is presumed that these ores are prolonged in their range beyond the Machi- 
gamig, and in fact their existence, to a limited extent, has been ascertained by the 
linear surveyors ; but the general surface of the region is here intersected by few 
ridges, and covered over with transported materials, effectually concealing the un¬ 
derlying rocks. 

Further west, on the sources of the Bad river, Mr. Whittlesey, while connected 
with the survey of the Chippewa district, discovered numerous deposits of iron, in 
the azoic series, and under conditions similar to those which prevail here. 

Crossing the Machi-gamig, the belt of azoic schists sweep to the south and south¬ 
west, intersecting the Menomonee river, along the southwestern boundary of our 
district. Throughout this portion of their range, the occurrence of these ores is by 
no means rare, but they are nowhere developed on such a scale, or exhibit so great 
a degree of purity as those in the vicinity of Teal lake; some of the beds, however, 
are valuable and may ultimately be made available. The most southerly deposits 
are in township 40, range 30, a few miles east of the Twin falls on the Menomonee 
river, and are among the most extensive and valuable in this portion of the district. 

When it is remembered that nearly the whole of this region is an unbroken wil¬ 
derness—without a human habitation, if we except the settlements along the valley 
of the Carp, or a trace of the labors of man, if we except the surveyor’s lines, or the 
few blind Indian trails—it seems reasonable to suppose that, at this time, we have 
but an imperfect idea of the extent of these iron-bearing deposits. The more im¬ 
portant masses have been discovered; but there are, undoubtedly, subordinate beds 
equal in purity and susceptible of being wrought, which will not be revealed until 
the axe shall level the forests, or the plough strip off the superficial covering. 

From the above sketch of the geographical range of the principal deposits of iron, 
it will be noticed that in the belt of azoic rocks as far west as the Machi-gamig river 
they predominate along the northern side of township 47 ; so that if we take a line 
running due east and west between this township and that of 48, for a distance of 
about eighteen miles in length, we shall find nearly all the valuable deposits concen¬ 
trated within a short distance to the north and south of that line. A tendency to 
the formation of a similar belt may be noticed along the southern side of township 
47, where the azoic schists are in close proximity to the granite. 

We proceed to a more detailed description of some of the more important iron 
deposits of this region. 

Township 47, Range 26.—The principal deposits of specular and magnetic oxide 
of iron ore are on and near the line between sections 27, 28, 29 and 30, and sections 
31, 32, 33 and 34; they are arranged in a metalliferous belt, bearing nearly east 
and west. In section 31, the iron ore is finely displayed in the bed and along the 
banks of a small stream which is one of the sources of the Escanaba river. At one 
point it is precipitated over a ledge of this ore, from a height of 37 feet, to which fall 
we have'given the name of the “ Iron Cascade.” The ore is a peroxide of iron, 


484 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


mixed with considerable silicious matter (see analysis), and seems to exhibit indis¬ 
tinct lines of bedding which dip at a high angle and are intersected at nearly right 
angles by joints which cut the mass into large tabular blocks. The quantity of the 
ore is evidently very great but covered with heavy accumulations of drift which line 
the stream on either side above the cascade, forming steep banks some fifty feet in 
height. 6 Proceeding eastward, we find, at the northeast corner of the section, and 
along the section line for the distance of a mile or two, at various points, the apparent 
prolongation of the same metalliferous band; but differing in character from that 
just described. The ore resembles the banded, jaspery deposit, on sections 10 and 
11 of the same township, in the next range westerly, known as the Cleveland loca- 
cation. In fact, throughout the w'hole extent of the azoic series, up to the granite, 
which makes its appearance a little north of the south line of the township—the 
line of demarcation running nearly east and west along the whole of the township 
—the slaty rocks are so associated with the iron, that it is evident some great, 
general cause has operated throughout their whole extent to impregnate the entire 
mass with this metal. The relation of the schistose rocks and the associated ore 
may be seen from the following section, near the northeast corner of section 31 : a is 

a compact, quartzose mass, highly 
charged with peroxide of iron, so 
as to be perfectly black, although 
distinct grains of quartz can be 
easily recognized in it. b is a 
somewhat slaty rock, resembling 
hornblende slate, also impregnated 
with iron, which occasionally 
forms in bands of quite pure ore, 
and in some places alternates with jaspery matter, as at numerous other localities. 
Much of the ore will yield from 40 to 50 per cent. 

Along the line between sections 32 and 33, near the junction of the azoic schists 
with the granite, the relations of the iron and the slaty and quartzose rocks are 
finely displayed, in a ravine which extends for a considerable distance to the east 
and west of this line. The phenomena, here, are of the most complicated and 
interesting character. On the north side of the ravine, we have the slaty and 
quartzose rocks dipping at a high angle to the north, and presenting a great variety 
of mineralogical structure. Quartzose bands, composed of fine grains of silicious 
matter, impregnated with peroxide of iron, with occasional wide bands of pure ore, 
alternate with a hornblende rock, having a schistose structure, and equally charged 
with ferruginous matter. The whole appearance of the mass is that of a series of 
beds of quartzose and hornblendic matter, thoroughly impregnated with iron and 
greatly disturbed, and changed from their original structure and position. On the 
south side of the ravine, at a distance of a couple of hundred feet, a complicated 
succession of trappean and granitic belts, crossed by numerous veins of igneous 
rock, is presented. Here, however, the rock is no longer charged with iron. 

Township 47, Range 27.—The deposits of iron, as before stated, are displayed on 
a grander scale than in any other portion of the district, and merit a special descrip, 
tion. 

The ferriferous band here forms a ridge about a thousand feet in width, and from 

8 Analysis: Perox. iron 66.03, Insoluble 32.63, of which 95.85 was Silica, 2.88 Peroxide 
iron and 1.27 earths. 






TIIE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


485 


a few feet to fifty in height, above the general level of the Lake Superior, 
surrounding country, and can be traced almost con¬ 
tinuously across the section in an easterly and westerly direction. On the 
northern side of the belt, the ore is compact, and of great purity; near the 
centre it exhibits a banded structure, while, to the south, it passes again into 
the compact variety. The annexed section by Mr. Hill will serve to illustrate 
these changes, and show the connection of the iron with the associated rocks. 1. 
Chlorite slate. 2. Compact iron ore. 3. Iron and jasper, in alternating bands. 

4. Hornblende and feld- 

N i Jackson Ore Bed. S spar rock, highly crystal¬ 

line. 5. Veins of quartz, 
containing ironglance, cut- 

1 8 5 5 2 4 tin g the mass - 

Whole width 1,000 feet. The dip is about 62° to 

the north. Towards the 

centre of the mass, the ore is less pure, and passes into the banded variety. 
Numerous veins of quartz (5) cut the great mass of ore, and contain specular oxide 
in large, brilliant plates, which present quite a different appearance from the ore 
which they traverse. The character of the ore varies at different points; but, in 
general, it possesses a remarkable degree of purity—for a description and analysis 
of which, see the chemical composition of the iron ores in the succeeding chapter. 7 
The iron has been worked to a limited extent in an open quarry, but there are loose 
blocks enough scattered along the base of the cliff to supply a furnace for many 
years. The same deposit, above described on section 1, continues westerly into 
section 2; but this latter section is far less valuable. The trappean rocks here form 
a bold ridge along its northern boundary, being a continuation of the ridge on sec¬ 
tion 1. In the sections still further west of this tier nothing of value has been 
discovered. 

In the northeast corner of section 12, next south of section 1, there are evidences 
of a deposit of iron in the deep red soil and large masses of ore, which lie near the 
surface on the side of a hill, of which the summit is a crystalline trappean rock. No 
part of this section, however, has been reported as containing a workable deposit 
of ore. 

In the next adjoining sections west (10 and 11), are deposits of ore on a scale of 
great magnitude; they are, in fact, unrivalled in the abundance and almost absolute 
purity of the ore. The purest ore occurs in a ridge, or elongated nob, which 
extends across the line between these two sections, about an eighth of a mile south 
of their northern boundary. It rises with precipitous walls to the height of at least 
fifty feet above the surrounding surface, and is made up of an almost chemically 
pure ore. It exhibits many of the characters of an igneous, eruptive rock, and can¬ 
not be regarded in any other light than as a huge lenticular mass, which has been 
elevated to its present position from beneath, while in a semi-fluid state, exactly in 
the same way as the trappean ridges which accompany it, and which it so strikingly 
resembles in general outline and position. The ores of this ridge, though in the 
highest degree of purity, differ somewhat in appearance at different points. The 
purest portions are a very compact and fine-grained specular ore, having an imper¬ 
fect slaty structure, and traversed by joints, like the slates in the neighborhood. 

7 Oxygen 29.4(5, Iron 68.07, Insoluble 2.89, no trace of Manganese, Phosphorus ot 

Sulphur. 





I 


486 PART II.-DIVISION II. 

Through this fine-grained base are scattered numerous, minute crystals of the mag' 
netic oxide. In other places, the ore is almost entirely made up of an aggregate of 
crystals of the magnetic oxide, sometimes very minute, and rarely larger than a 
pin’s head. Abundance of ore may be obtained in loose blocks, around the base of 
the ridge, and of a quality unrivalled for purity, containing between sixty-nine and 
seventy per cent of metallic iron. 8 The emanations of metallic matter have pene¬ 
trated the adjoining slaty rocks in the vicinity of this locality, and filled them with 
crystals of magnetic oxide and occasional streaks and bands of fine-grained peroxide 
of iron. The thickness of the mass described above, or its linear extent, cannot be 
given with accuracy, as its limits are concealed by the heavy covering of drift which 
extends over the greater portion of this region; but it may be safely stated that 
this single locality is capable of furnishing an inexhaustible supply of ore; and that, 
too, without recourse being had to expensive underground mining. 

Farther south, we find another deposit of ore crossing the line between the same 
sections (10 and 11), on a scale of still greater magnitude, though not equal in point 
of purity, to the ore last described; this is known as the Cleveland location. It 
rises in the form of an elongated knob, or ridge, to the height of one hundred and 
eighty feet above the small stream in the valley at its base, and one hundred and 
fifty-two feet above the drift terrace, over which the road passes near its northern 
slope. Its height above Lake Superior is 1,039 feet, and it forms the culminating 
point on this line, between the two lakes. This mountain of ore, for such it may be 
called, is no less remarkable for its magnitude, than for its extraordinary structure. 
It is made up, as far as it is exposed on its sides, which rise irregularly, and in some 
places with vertical walls, of alternate bands of pure fine-grained peroxide of iron 
and of jaspery ore. The thickness of the bands varies from that of a sheet of paper 
up to one-fourth of an inch. They are not arranged in a constant position, with 
regard to the general disposition of the mass ; but are twisted and contorted in 
every variety of form and outline; the curvatures are, however, mostly on a very 
small scale, the radius of curvature in the concentrically folded layers being nevej 
as great as one foot in length. The deep-red color of the jaspery portion contrasts 
admirably with the steel-grev of the less silicious bands; indeed, the singular beauty 
presented to the eye on stripping off the mossy covering of a vertical wall thus 
decorated by innumerable fantastically-interwoven stripes of harmonizing and bril¬ 
liant colors can hardly be exaggerated. We know of nothing resembling it else¬ 
where. This peculiarity of structure, as well as the convolutions, is represented in 
Plate xxi., Fig. 3. The width of this deposit of ore cannot be less, at its base, than 



Peroxide 90.58, magnetic oxide 9.17, Silica .20, or Iron 70.22, Oxygen 29.53. 










THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


487 


a thousand feet, and it may be traced for considerably Lake Superior, 
over a mile in length. It is probable that the deposit 

which occurs on the western line of this section, south of the trail, is a continua¬ 
tion of that just described. It appears in the form of a rounded knob, portions 
of which are of very pure ore, while, in other places, it exhibits the same banded 
structure as the more easterly portion of the ridge. 

In the line of sections next south of 10, 11 and 12, namely, 13, 14 and 15, there is 
a large quantity of iron at numerous localities; but so far as we have examined them, 
they are much inferior in quality and purity to those just described. The metallic 
matter has apparently not been thrown up bodily in a fluid, or semi-fluid state; but 
has permeated the slaty, silicious rocks in the form of a sublimation from below, 
and is, therefore, not pure, being mixed with more or less foreign matter. At the 
southeastern corner of section 13, the hornblende slate is thus impregnated with 
iron, which occasionally forms in it streaks of quite pure ore, but not of any con¬ 
siderable thickness. The same may be said of numerous localities along the line 
between sections 13, 14 and 15, and sections 22, 23 and 24. In proportion, how¬ 
ever, as we recede to the north or south of a band about a mile in width, occupy¬ 
ing the northern portion of the township, we find the quantity and purity of the ore 
deteriorating. 

Township 48, Range 30.—On the northern shore of Machi-gummi, iron has been 
observed at several localities, but it possesses no great purity. It is associated with 
compact hornblende and feldspar rocks, which may be eruptive in their origin. In 
some instances, it occurs in slates, when it partakes of the laminated structure 
characteristic of these deposits. In other instances, for example along the south 
boundary of section 32, township 48, range 30, it is associated with a rock in which 
quartz largely predominates: an association very common in the Adirondack ores 
of New York. 

Township 46, Ranges 29 and 30.—The largest mass observed by us in this region 
occurs on the left bank of the Machi-gamig, in section 7, of township 46, range 29, 
and traces of it are to be observed on several of the adjoining sections. It here 
rises in a nearly vertical cliff to the height of one hundred and thirteen feet, and is 
somewhat variable in purity. For the most part, it has a slaty cleavage, and, on 
close inspection, is observed to be composed of alternating bands of micaceous 
specular iron and quartz, tinged red by the peroxide of iron; but there are occa¬ 
sional belts which display a granular texture, and apparently possess a greater 
degree of purity. 9 These laminae are nearly vertical, exhibiting few contortions, 
and range with so much uniformity, that the observer would be inclined to refer 
both the slates and the iron to a common origin. Interlaminated with it, is a band 
of rock composed mainly of white, granular quartz, with traces of feldspar, through 
which are disseminated particles, as well as rounded masses, of specular iron. It is 
difficult to pronounce whether this is a conglomerate or a breccia. Notwithstand¬ 
ing the immense development of this iron, it was found impossible to determine its 
relations to the surrounding rocks, a fact of much importance in judging of its 
igneous, or metamorphic, origin. At several points, veins of pure white quartz 
were seen traversing the cliff, which contained iron glance, a form of this mineral 
which was nowhere noticed except in this association. 

In the vicinity of portage No. 4, and on the right bank of the river, according to 
Mr. Burt, the same kind of specular iron is seen in ledges twenty and fifty feet ic 

9 Analysis: Iron 37.73, Oxygen 14.95, Silica 46.92, trace of lime anl magnesia. 


488 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


height; and another exposure of equal magnitude was noticed on the north boun¬ 
dary of townshipr 46, range 29; but in both instances the associated rocks were not 
recognized. 

On the north boundary of township 43, range 31, Mr. John Burt observed a bed 
of iron possessing a considerable degree of purity, but of inconsiderable extent. 

Township 40, Range 30.—This, as far as known, is the most southern position of 
the iron, and of course nearest to the navigable waters of Lake Michigan. Its posi¬ 
tion, however, as will be seen, is far less favorable than that of the deposits in the 
vicinity of Lake Superior, and we do not, therefore, believe the iron will become of 
practical value, at least within a reasonable time. According to Mr. Whittlesey’s 
notes, the bed is exposed near the southwest corner of the township, at several 
points along the west side of a hill wdiich is about one hundred feet in height; its 
breadth is from one to two hundred feet, showing nothing but slaty iron ore on its 
summit for a distance of forty rods. The real extent of this deposit is concealed by 
heavy accumulations of drift and boulders along its base and on the summit of the 
ridge ; but it probably extends eastward for a considerable distance. The distance 
from this deposit to the Menomonee river is only two or three miles ; this river 
would furnish a great amount of water power in the neighborhood of the ore, but is 
not navigable except for canoes, which can be carried round the numerous falls by 
portages. The quality of the ore does not appear, from the specimens collected, to 
be very good, it being mixed with more than half its weight of silicious matter. 
The surface of the township is so covered by burnt and fallen timber and a thick 
undergrowth of maple and poplar, that it is difficult to ascertain much with regard 
to the character of the subjacent rocks. 

Township 40, Range 28.—In the south part of this township, on the line between 
sections 28 and 29, there is, according to Mr. Burt, a deposit of iron of considerable 
extent It is at least a hundred feet in breadth, and extends probably three-fourths 
of a mile in a linear direction. The specimens of the ore show a very high degree 
of purity, as they contain but little silicious matter, and are a mixture of the per¬ 
oxide and magnetic oxide, yielding from 63 to 68 per cent of metallic iron. (See 
analysis). The course of the bed is N 80° east S 80° west, and the dip is 80° to the 
north. This is probably the most valuable deposit of ore in the southern portion 
of the district, thus far observed. 

Township 42, Range 30.—In the southern part of this township large blocks of 
ore have been observed, but the bed was not discovered. 

Townships 42 and 43, Range 32.—In these townships several localities of ore are 
reported by Mr. John Burt; but, as he remarks in his notes, they are not generally 
of sufficiently good quality, or extensive enough, to make them of much value. 
The ores of this portion of the district are generally much mixed with silicious mat¬ 
ter, and far inferior to those of the deposits further to the northeast. (See analysis). 

“The Lake Superior ore is replacing the black band ore in eastern Ohio, although 
costing three times as much per ton, the furnaces finding their profits in a far supe¬ 
rior quality of metal, less coal, and more tons a day, by the use of Lake Superior ore. 
One of the best furnacemen in the bituminous coal region, Charles Howard, of 
Youngstown, now uses from three-fourths to all Lake Superior ore. Other furnaces 
are increasing their proportion of it also. Yet the black band is abundant, and with 
the other native ores are obtained very cheaply in the vicinity. But the black band 
will not make good iron, and is never used but in small proportions.” (See letter 
signed T. p. 53, of Monck’s American Mining Chronicle, N. York, May 22, 1858, 
and notes 462, etc. Table H, page 128 of the A I. A. Bulletin.) 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


489 


North of Lake Superior at Gros Cap 
near Michipoten river, “ dykes ” of iron ore a 0 u P erlor * 
were discovered in 1851, facing the water, four hundred feet 
in height. A company was formed in Detroit to work it. 1 


Canada.— The British Provinces of North America abound in various ores, 
although their mineral resources have hardly yet begun to be developed. An inte¬ 
resting collection of their ores of iron was exhibited by Mr. Logan, the Provincial 
Geologist, at the Great Exhibition in 1852. From his account of them, it appears 
that the magnetic and specular oxides are most abundantly distributed throughout 
the Provinces. They occur chiefly in a formation consisting of gneiss interstratified 
with important bands of a highly crystallized limestone, which sweeps through the 
Province from Lake Huron to Labrador, and connects near the Thousand Islands with 
the great azoic district of New York, already noticed as so rich in iron ores. The 
ore of Canada, as in New York, forms immense beds, interstratified with the gneiss, 
and dipping at a high angle. In the township of Marmora there is a bed 100 feet 
in thickness. In Madoc there is one which has been traced for several miles and 
found to have a breadth of 25 feet. This locality has been worked to some extent. 
At Myer’s Lake in South Sherbrooke there is a 64 foot bed. In South Crosby a 
mass of ore 200 feet in thickness is also mentioned. These magnetic ores are 60 to 
70 per cent metallic iron. Specular ore is also abundant. At Macnab is a bed of it 
25 feet thick and most favorably situated in every respect. 2 

The Belmont beds of proto-peroxide of iron (fer oxidule) 
which feed the Marmora forges of Upper Canada are interca¬ 
lated among beds of crystalline limestone and green talc schist, 
in basin form, over a width of 40 yards. At Madoc, some 
leagues from Belmont, another bed occurs in mica schist 10 yards 
thick, extremely fine grained, often magnetic and polar, con¬ 
taining a little actinolite and small quantities of yellow uranite, 
and makes superior iron. The beds of the surrounding district 
are — a t South Sherbrooke 25 yards wide,—at Crosby on the 
Bideau canal more than 60 yards wide,—at Hull on the Outaoua 
35 yards wide in a dome or anticlinal wave. These beds are 
pure magnetic iron ore mixed only with a few hundredths of 
mica or quartz. The red hematite or compact fer oxidule often 
replaces the foregoing variety, and occurs at Macnab on the 
Outaoua 9 yards thick in crystalline limestone, mixed with a 
little silex and carbonate of lime. An immense bed is said to 
exist on one of the isles of Lake Nipissing. 3 

The titaniferous iron ores of the Laurentian formation merit 
well the attention of mineralogists by their abundance and by 

i Amer. R. R. Jour. p. 525. 2 Whitney’s Metallic Wealth, page 481. 

3 Esquisse g^ologique du Canada. Paris, 1855. 



490 


PART ir. —DIVISION n. 


tlieir associations; although not adapted to the manufacture of 
iron, they are sources of titanium. Their principal layers in 
Canada are on the Bay of Saint Paul where may he seen a sin¬ 
gle mass 30 yards in thickness and more than 100 long, with 
many smaller ones inclosed in a feldspathic rock of the sixth 
system, a granular ilmenite of the Urals, affording to Sterry 
Hunt Titanic acid 48.60, Protoxide iron 37.06, peroxide iron 
10.42, magnesia 3.60, containing pure transparent orange-red 
grains of titanic acid, rutile or brookite. These feldspar rocks 
in some places contain titaniferous iron in beds some inches wide, 
marking lines of stratification. Here will be the future mining 
region of titanium. 4 

Addendum. 

While this first chapter was in press the author received the 
unbound sheets and plates of the second volume of II. I). Ro¬ 
gers’s Pinal Report of the Geology of Pennsylvania, like the 
first volume, printed in Europe, and nominally published in 
Philadelphia by Lippincott & Co. Reserving for a more suita¬ 
ble place the reflections which these extraordinary books excite, 
I add here what is said in their chapter on the iron ores concern¬ 
ing the igneous origin of the primary ores and the nature of the 
Cornwall bed. 

The magnetic iron ore occurs only in the form of true veins of injection or genu¬ 
ine mineral lodes. Its veins very generally coincide approximately in direction and 
inclination with the crystalline strata, between the layers of which they lie; yet this 
conformity is only partial, for when they are traced with close attention, they are 
occasionally found to intersect the strata for a short distance, and then resume their 
parallelism. These iron ores evidently reached the positions in which we thus find 
them while in a melted state, their intrusion being the result of an enormous subter¬ 
raneous force, rupturing the earth’s crust in the direction of the strata, or in the 
planes of weakest cohesion, and pressing the liquid ore and other fused mineral mat¬ 
ter into the open fissures. Where the rent has been at all irregular or splintery, 
the vein which filled it is interrupted or uneven, being in some places pinched to 
xery narrow dimensions by the approximation of its walls, in others dilating by 
their recession, and in many cases being split into two or more parallel branches by 
the insertion of a wedge-shaped portion of one or other wall. The veins incline at 
all angles between 45° and the perpendicular. 

As a general rule, the lodes of magnetic iron ore of the chain of the Highlands, 
tracing them from the Schuylkill to the Delaware, and then across New Jersev and 
New York, give ev'idence, iu the nature and mode of distribution of the included 
crystalline minerals, of their having in many cases derived at least a portion of these 
from the fusion of the minerals of the walls of the fissures into which the intensely 


4 Esquisse g6ologique du Canada. Paris. 1855. 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


491 


heated ore has flowed. It is indeed a very common fact that the foreign minerals 
in the ore are precisely such as would be produced by the melting 6 and re-crystal¬ 
lizing ot the rocky matter in contact with the vein. I may mention, as worthv of 
record in this place, a general fact of some scientific and much practical value, in 
relation to the relative position of the oxide of iron and the non-metallic minerals 
in the same vein. Where the vein or dyke is large, and contains much extraneous 
mineral matter, this latter, it the inclination is not very steep or perpendicular, 
forms a separate division in the vein, and almost 6 invariably rests upon the ore ; 
but where, on the other hand, the dip is nearly vertical, the earthy minerals and the 
ore are more intimately mingled, or the respective masses of each intersect, or in¬ 
close each other irregularly. 

Ihe origin of these different conditions of insulation of the materials is very ob¬ 
vious. The oxide of iron, while the whole mass of the vein was yet in a state of 
fusion and very fluid, would necessarily, from its greater relative weight, follow the 
lower wall of the fissure as it flowed to the surface, while the much lighter earthy 
minerals would float, as it were, upon the upper side of the ore, taking the position 
with respect to the latter of its scoria or cinder. This would arise wherever the slope 
ot the fissure was sufficient to give the force of gravity much control in the distribu¬ 
tion of the materials; but in all cases of a perpendicular vein there would be no 
tendency in the heavier metallic portion to collect on one side rather than on an¬ 
other, and therefore it and the lighter mass would mingle more promiscuously. I 
first detected these phenomena among the magnetic veins of Orange county, New 
York, where the ore is often accompanied by much white feldspathic granite, the 
product apparently of the fusion of the feldspathic gneiss of its walls ; and I have 
become confirmed in my impression of their generality by an extensive study of the 
veins of iron ore of the entire chain of the Highlands, from the east side of New 
York to the river Schuylkill, and of many of the great magnetic dykes of the west 
side of Lake Champlain. 

There are many veins which are not accompanied by aDy separate body of gra¬ 
nitic matter, but contain the feldspar, hornblende, or other minerals in much abun¬ 
dance, disseminated through the ore. These we may imagine to have acquired their 
solid state, at least in the portions near the surface, where alone we can observe 
them, from a condition of imperfect fluidity, like that of the already half-chilled lava 
of some volcanic eruptions which would effectually prevent 7 the separation of the 
heavier from the lighter constituents. Such are some of the gneissoid iron veins of 
the South Mountains east of the Schuylkill. The Long Mine on the Sterling estate, 4 
miles east of the Ramapo, in New York, is a good example of the characteristic fea¬ 
tures of these lodes of magnetic oxide of iron ; it displays the outcrop of two veins, 
each reposing directly upon gneiss, and covered by a thick vein, or rather division 
of the same vein, consisting of coarse white feldspathic granite. 8 

The mode of mining these veins, where the dip is not excessively steep, is to leave 
numerous staunch pillars of the ore, and to remove by blasting that which inter¬ 
venes. A partially columnar structure ^or cleavage, is sometimes visible, as in the 
principal vein of the Sterling Long Mine, dividing the ore perpendicularly, or nearly 

Why not dissolving and re-crystallizing? 

6 It must be shown that this happens in all cases. There must be no exception as 
there is none in the casting floor of a blast-furnace. Otherwise one may as well say that 
the top shales of a coal bed were a scum on the fluid coal. 

7 And as effectually prevent the issue of the iron lava. 

8 Explained by repeated solutions and precipitations. 


492 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


so, to the surfaces which confine it. It greatly facilitates the operations of the 
miner. This structure, so analogous to that of many basaltic and other igneous 
dykes, is by no means infrequent in the large veins of magnetic iron ore, and indi¬ 
cates a slow and gradual crystallization from a state of fluidity. 9 

Of the practical utility of the general fact which I have now announced respect¬ 
ing the frequent presence of some form of granite or unstratified rock, and the 
almost invariably overlying position which it occupies, one or two simple illustra¬ 
tions may be interesting. The first intimation usually procured of proximity to a 
vein of magnetic iron ore is by the local disturbance it produces in the magnetic 
compass; but as the indications of the position of the vein derived from this instru¬ 
ment are frequently very vague and perplexing, it is of the greatest value to have some 
independent geological clue to its situation. Such, approximately at least, may be 
found in the usually conspicuous granitic outcrop of the upper half of the vein. 1 
When this is accompanied by a strong disturbing action upon the magnetic needle, 
we may infer, with a high degree of probability, that a metalliferous vein, large or 
small, lies immediately in contact with and below the dyke, and it is then only ne¬ 
cessary to ascertain, from an inspection of the dip and direction of the adjoining 
gneiss, the lower edge of the granitic dyke, to have all the data requisite for finding 
the outcrop of the ore with very considerable certainty. 

But this knowledge of the inferior position of the ore to the unstratified rock ac¬ 
companying it, I have found useful in another way. It can be applied to tracing 
or recovering a vein of the ore thus overlaid by a mass of granite which has sud¬ 
denly eluded the miner through the effect of some transverse fault or dislocation. 
Where the displacement, as usual, is to the extent of only a few yards, it is very ob¬ 
vious that, if the fault be an upthrow , the gneiss upon which the ore-vein rests will 
constitute the wall; whereas, if it be a downthrow , the granitic roof will lie athwart 
the original course of the vein. 

Mr. Rogers then adds a few facts to those given in his first 
volume respecting the primary ores of the Easton-Reading 
range of Durham hills or South Mountain. 

Near Durham iron-works, and not far from the creek, there is a valuable vein of 
magnetic iron ore, discovered a few years since, and now wrought for the furnaces. 
This lode varies in thickness from 2 to 14 feet, averaging about 6 feet. Its total 
length has not been ascertained, but up to the summer of 1856 a gangway had been 
driven along it for 850 feet It ranges northeast and southwest, and dips 45°. 
The ore is pronounced rich and excellent. Within a few hundred feet of this lode 

there is a deposit of rich hematitic ore, thought to be derived from it.The 

same variety of ore, of excellent quality, is found on the surface, near the top of 
the north gneissic ridge south of Allentown, at a spot a little west of the Philadel¬ 
phia road. A less magnetic variety is met with on the north slope of the hill, a 
mile to the east of the road. Further to the southwest, the magnetic iron ore shows 
itself in the hill three miles southeast from Metztown, the spot being a little west 
of the Philadelphia road. It is on the south side of the second gneiss ridge from 
the north. The ore occurs in three regular veins, dipping with the adjoining strata 
at an angle of 50° to the south-southeast. The south vein is about 1J feet thick ; 

9 Sandstones are thus cleft, and they have never been melted. 

1 This granite may have been a loose sandrock through which the iron settled to its 
place. 



THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


493 


north of it occurs a stratum of rock (gneiss) 8 feet across, in contact with which is 
the middle vein, separated near its outcrop into two branches, which at a little depth 
unite into one vein ; this is bounded on the north by a stratum of rock about 4 
feet iu thickness, and directly in contact with this is the third or north vein, having 
a thickness of 2 feet. The rock which incloses these several veins is a coarse regu¬ 
larly stratified gneiss, a mixture chiefly of quartz and feldspar. 

Near Princetown, on Rauzbaun’s farm, an old pit or shallow shaft has been re¬ 
opened. The ore is highly magnetic, and of an excellent quality, but the vein is not 
a promising one, being only a few inches thick. At Roads’s, nearly 2 miles east of 
Pricetown, there is a vein of superior magnetic iron ore, said to be between 5 and 
6 feet thick. Its dip is perpendicular. In Alsace township, a vein of the ore has 
been opened 2£ miles south of the canal. This vein occurs in gneiss rock, and is 
double, being divided by a wedge of granite, or granitoid gneiss. The strata dip 
south 80°, and the vein has the same inclination. The whole thickness of the vein 
is about 8 feet, but the good ore measures only 4 feet, and this is in two veins of 2 
feet each, the rest of the ore being very inferior. 

Penn's Mount Ore-vein .—In the district we are now describing, though not strictly 
within the gneiss itself, there is an important vein of igneous iron ore, which has 
been wrought for some years. It is opened on Penn's Mount, about half a mile east 
of Reading. The vein apparently is injected conformably to the bedding of the pri¬ 
mal white sandstone, and the ore is not accompanied by any bounding wall of igne¬ 
ous rock, but is in immediate contact with the sandstone itself. The latter rock 
disintegrates quickly on exposure to the atmosphere, and develops innumerable 
small grains of hornblende, which speckle the yellowish-grey sand. The ore-vein 
ranges from the Reading Fair ground, a little south of east, dipping 45° south. Its 
thickness is seldom less than 18 inches, and has been as great as 28 feet. Under 
this enlargement it does not appear to suffer in quality. The ore itself is of the 
granitoid variety, highly crystalline, containing quartz and feldspar, especially the 
latter, in great abundance : hornblende and apatite enter also into its composition. 
The vein has been wrought at its surface, outcropping in the Reading Fair ground, 
and for one-third of a mile east, by Eckert and Brother, the Phoenixville Iron Com¬ 
pany, and others, on the lands of Mr. Oakley and B. Davis. The principal mine is 
the vertical shaft of Eckert and Brother : this is sunk 142 feet to the level of a tun¬ 
nel, which is cut north 28 feet through rotten sandstone to the top of the vein. 
From this tunnel the vein is followed by a gangway 30 feet east and 115 feet west. 
The ore is worked along the foot-wall rising towards the surface, the hanging wall 
or roof being supported by timbers. The length of breast to the old surface-level 
workings is 72 feet. The ore from this old level was obtained at a depth of 82 feet. 
The Phoenixville Company are now obtaining their ore from a surface-level and 
whin-sliaft east of Eckert's Mine. In Eckert’s old level, 100 feet west of the whin- 
shaft, the vein split, but the north branch vein thinned away in 100 feet. 

The Island Mine , situated on an island in the Schuylkill, one mile below Reading, 
has been wrought by Eckert, Syfert, and Company, but is now, perhaps temporarily, 
abandoued. The vein dips about 40° northwest. It is overlaid by dense brecciat- 
ed limestone, locally known as “all sorts” limestone. This is, no doubt, the Meso¬ 
zoic conglomerate, which appears in the opposite bank of the river in situ. The 
northwest dip of this rock has no doubt regulated the dip of the injected material. 
The under-rock of the veiu we do not certainly know, but from the specimens seen 
it appears to be an impure silicious limestone, or that usually termed “ bastard.” 
The surface of the island is strewn with igneous rocks, but we are informed that none 


494 


PART IT.-DIVISION II. 


are found in contact with the vein. The iron ore-vein, which is in thickness from a 
few inches to 15 feet, is a heavy, fine-grained slate-blue rock, containing lime in its 
constitution, and decomposing rapidly on exposure to the atmosphere. When de¬ 
composing, it assumes a deep sea-green color, and develops copperas on the surface, 
from the sulphuret of iron in the ore. In some specimens the pyrites have so much 
the aspect of sulphuret of copper that chemical evidence is required to correct the 
impression. A slope has been sunk upon the vein 90 feet below the surface, and, 
28 feet above its foot, gangways are driven along the vein 20 feet towards the north¬ 
east, and 250 feet southwest. 

About half a mile west of the preceding is the Roudenbush Mine , which, we are 
informed, yields its proprietors at the Phoenixville furnaces 5,000 tons of ore per 
annum The vein ranges a little north of east. Its foot-wall is white metamorphic 
limestone, or marble, and its hanging-wall, or roof, a dull sea-green serpeutine-like 
rock, which on exposure soon crumbles down like ordinary shale. The vein, dip¬ 
ping 80° south, is followed by a slope 280 feet beneath the surface. At the bottom, 
gangways are driven 200 feet west, and 400 feet east, to a fault cutting out the vein. 
A higher level, 160 feet from the surface, is driven 300 feet east The ore is now 
taken from this level. Like all others, this vein is exceedingly variable; while 
wholly or almost entirely absent in some places, in others it has been found 30 feet 
thick. Its average bulk will not exceed 12 feet. The gangue-stone of the ore |s a 
light-blue rotten limestone, from which the ore is scarcely distinguishable, except 
by its greater weight and deeper tint. Of the entire ground wrought, about one- 
half the material is sufficiently rich in iron for the furnace ; the remaining rubbish 
is used as stopping in the old workings. 

The Wheatfield Mining Company have opened a series of veins about 5 miles west 
of that last described. At this locality there are already proved about ten veins of 
igneous ore, ranging north and south, and all included within a transverse distance 
of 150 feet. The maximum thickness attained by any one of these veins is 8 feet. 
They are opened from the surface over an irregular area to a depth of about 40 feet, 
and have been followed along the outcrop from 50 to 110 feet. They occupy loose 
unstratified ground, including igneous rocks, to the depth at which they have been 
mined ; and below that, as they are included in the beds of the Mesozoic conglome¬ 
rate, they become pyritous, and are not wrought. The ore is similar in general 
aspect to that of the two last described mines. It frequently incloses fine crystals 
of calc-spar. 

A narrow valley separates these veins as far as they have been traced north from 
an east and west vein, which is worked by a slope. This vein dips 30° south. It is 
underlaid by a foot-wall of trap, and overlaid by white crystalline marble. The 
thickness ranges between 2 and 12 feet. There is a strong admixture of lime in the 
ore. The slope is sunk 78 feet, and a gangway is driven 110 feet east. 

In the range of the east and west vein of the Wheatfield Company, but a fourth 
of a mile further west, is situated the Henry Ruth, Mine. The vein, which is, in all 
probability, the same, having similar walls both above and below, dips 25° south, 
and has exceeded 15 feet in thickness. The slope upon it is 120 feet long, and gang¬ 
ways are driven 45 feet west and 60 feet east It has been also wrought at the sur¬ 
face outcrop. 

The slates of the Primal series, especially the upper Primal slate, yield two classes 
of iron ore : one a very ferruginous variety of the rock itself, under conditions of 
more or less metamorphism ; the other, a class of rich brown hematitic iron ore of 
superficial formation. To the first class belong the valuable and noted mines of 


THE PRIMARY IRON ORE8. 


495 


Cornwall, in Lebanon county, the Jones Mines in Berks, and partially the Chestnut 
Hill Mine near Columbia, and some of the ore diggings near Safe Harbor. At all 
of these localities the ore appears to be an original constituent of the Primal slate, 
but to have undergone a more or less degree of segregation from the substance of 
the rock by some agency connected with the metamorphism of the stratum. In 
many parts of the mass the oxide of iron is in a crystalline condition, dispersed in 
small specks throughout the other mineral constituents of the rock, which retains all 
its original features of stratification, and which resembles very much a mica-slate, or 
other metamorphic schist. This highly-altered ferruginous form of the rock is also 
in many instances subdivided by innumerable cleavage fissures, the effect of which 
has been to change the semi-crystalline magnetic iron ore to the ordinary brown per¬ 
oxide or limonite by the copious admission of the surface waters and atmosphere 
into the body of the rock. In some spots, long exposed to abundant soakage through 
the cleavage-cracks, the iron ore is not only thus changed, but is actually collected 
into the deep narrow clefts of the rock worn by the percolation of the waters in the 
direction of the cleavage, so that in a cross section of the mine we may witness the 
curious anomaly of the ribbon structure or laminm of stratification dipping one way, 
and the plates or veins of the accumu¬ 
lated iron ore, and its associated clay, 
dipping independently at a steep inter¬ 
secting angle. The annexed little cut 
(Fig. 573) exhibits a synclinal basin of 
the Primal slate thus percolated with ore 
to a certain distance from the surface in 
the direction of the cleavage-fissures. 

An illustration of this mode of accumu¬ 
lation of the iron ore in the clefts connected with cleavage has been already fur¬ 
nished in Volume I., page 218, where a section is shown of the Rathfon Ore-bank, 
near Safe Harbor (see fig. 27), the only difference being, that the rock is the Auroral 
magnesian limestone, interstratified with talcoid slate, and not the Primal slate itself. 

The other kind of ore derived from the Primal slates is the hydrated browm perox¬ 
ide deposited upon the surface of the formation from the ferruginous loamy matter 
derived from the complete disintegration of the slaty rock. Nearly all the large de¬ 
posits of the formation contain a greater or less proportion of this species of ore, 
and some of them consist of it almost exclusively. In the extensive open cutting 
called the Chestnut Hill Ore-bank, near Columbia, of which a description has already 
been given (Vol. I., p. 182), much ore is seen to pervade the lower layers of the 
altered Primal slate, while a large and dense body of the peroxide of iron has been 
accumulated at the very base of the formation, by a downward soaking of the sur¬ 
face-water collecting and concreting the ore in a dense and thick stratum or rude 
mass upon an impervious floor of close-grained Primal white sandstone. 

The following circumstantial description of the iron mines at Cornwall, Lebanon 
county, shows the several phases under wdiich both classes of the Primal ores, the 
segregated semi-crystalline and the concreted hematitic varieties, prevail. At this 
locality the actions collecting the oxide of iron into its present conditio: s have been 
somewhat complicated. The ferruginous Primal slate has been metamorphosed, and 
its oxide of iron segregated and crystallized through the influence probably of highly 
heated volcanic steam, and the same influence has produced a very general cleavage- 
structure. During the same action, or subsequently, numerous injections of molten 
hot lava, resulting in dykes of trap-rock, have invaded the stratum, and have still 



Fig. 573. 




IAKT II.-DIVISION II. 


196 




m - o. 


v. 


- 


G qf 






Cd 


e+ i 
O I 

I 

a 

o 

P 

=3 

£ ^ 

' si 

t- 1 -S 

Cx © 

B » 

P. r» 

<r: 

co : 


( 


$ 


<v 

Oo 


♦*». 

Ok 










>*2r^ 


further changed the condition of the mass, infusing among it, 
probably by sublimation, some trappcan mineral matter, and 
especially some sulphuret and carbonate of copper; and since 
these subterranean influences, the atmosphere, through its 
rains, has exerted itself through countless ages to modify still 
further the chemical and physical conditions of the" shattered 
and fissured mass, and its contained oxide of iron. 

Cornwall Iron Mines .—This great iron ore deposit, by far 
the most extensive, and one of the most interesting in the 
State, is situated at the outcrop of the Primal upper slates, 
where they rise from beneath the Auroral limestone in Leba¬ 
non county, on the southeast border of the Kittatinny valley. 
The geological relations of these mines on the border of the 
Kittatinnv vallev are shown in Fig. 574. 

The ore strata are embraced in three hills, having a nearly 
east and west range. These hills are flanked to the north by 
the Auroral limestone, and south by the overlapping uncon- 
formable Mesozoic red sandstone, which forms a high ridge 
prolonged east and west, and overlooking the valley. Their 
position is five miles south of the town of Lebanon. 

The eastern or “Big” Hill is elevated 312 feet above the 
level of the creek at its base. The middle hill is 98 feet high, 
and the western hill 78 feet high. The peculiar features of 

each of these will be considered in detail. 

« 

The bounding wall of the ore in the Big Hill is a heavy dyke 
of trap, which varies in regard to texture and composition as 
the feldspar or hornblendic element predominates. This massive 
dyke, the thickness of which seems nowhere less than 40 feet, 
and probably greatly exceeds this, encircles the hill on three 
sides, the south, east, and north, somewhat in form of a horse¬ 
shoe. The north limb rises from the water-level at an angle of 
60° or 70°; on descending to its water-level upon its south 
limb, the dyke bends sharply south, and is obscured by surface 
debris. Besides this general outer wall of trap, there are sev¬ 
eral smaller dykes of the same material; some of these appear 
to be offshoots from the main dyke, and are found in one or 
two instances interstratified with the ore. In other cases they 
appear as simple isolated columns of rock, surrounded by ore, 
and not traceable longitudinally through the hill, as the section 
would imply. At water level, on the west side of the hill, the 
two limbs of the ore inclosing trap are about 400 feet asunder, 
but on the hill-top, as a consequence of their opposing dips, 
they are 500 feet, or even 600 feet apart. 

The ore in this hill is nearly horizontally, though irregularly 
stratified, and presents every possible aspect, from slaty green¬ 
ish-grey to dark green and dark ferruginous brown and black : 
the latter variety is found chiefly in the vicinity of the trap 
dykes, and large masses are strewn extensively upon the hill¬ 
sides, especially upon the north and south slopes. This variety, 









THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


497 


known locally as the Nigger-head ore, is very highly endowed with magnetic po¬ 
larity. As we recede from the vicinity of the intrusive rock, the ore becomes lighter 
in hue, and more slaty in texture. In parts of the mine these slaty portions are too 
poor in iron to be wrought. With the exception of those portions of the ore which are 
closely adjacent to the trap, the mass teems with crystals of sulphuret of iron; almost 
every hand-specimen displays many specks and small intersecting veins of it. This py¬ 
rites increases in abundance as the mining penetrates beneath the surface, or as the 
ore has been unaffected by atmospheric influences. Copper ore is found at times, in 
the form of green carbonate and grey oxide, impregnating the iron ore, but it does 
not appear as a vein, nor is it in coutact with the dykes of trap, though probably in¬ 
troduced at the time of their intrusion. The iron ore hitherto obtained from the Big 
Hill has been taken from shallow excavations at the surface; it is now wrought ex¬ 
clusively at the west base, where successive benches are cut down from the surface 



Fig. 575.—Map of the Cornwall Ore Hills, Lebanon County. 


to the railway level. At the east base of the Big Hill there is a smaller rectangular 
excavation (See Fig. 578) of black and yellow crumbly ore, the bedding of which is 
nearly vertical, ranging north and south parallel to the face of a trap dyke which 
bounds it. This wall of trap is parallel to the east edge of the Big Hill, 200 yards dis¬ 
tant ; whether it is the outer face of the same great dyke has not been determined. 
On the east side of the pit another dyke of trap is visible, but the excavation has not 
been sufficiently extensive to determine its range or amount. A third narrow dyke 
crosses the south end of the excavation. The ore at this mine is granular and black, 
chieflv crystalline, or dark grey, in the vicinity of the trap; and in other places it 
is yellow and dark green, from atmospheric action. 

The Middle Hill, separated from the Big Hill by a narrow valley, through which 
flows a small stream known as Saddler’s Run, is that from which at present the ore 
of the district is chiefly obtained. The north wall of the ore is the prolongation 
west of the trap dyke w'hich forms its north boundary in the Big Hill. This dyke 
ranges west through the Middle Hill, deflecting gently south along its west slope ; 
it then crosses the valley, separating this from the west ore-hill, and soon after turns 

32 









498 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 



north, then west, and finally curves south ound the end of the 
latter, and is lost to view. Owing to the south turn of the 
southern limbs of the dyke at the west base of the Big Hill, it 
does not cross the valley, and does not appear in either of 
the two west hills, in both of which the boundary of the ort? 
at the surface is formed by the overlapping debris of red sand¬ 
stone and conglomerate from the neighboring hills. The gene¬ 
ral appearance and character of the ore in the Middle and 
Western hills is similar to that of the Big Hill. It is slaty 
throughout, and very pyritous ; for which reason it soon crum¬ 
bles under exposure. In those parts of the mine where the 
ore has been cut down cheese-like by the miners, the natural 
bedding of the mass is curiously contorted and irregular along 
a general horizontal plane. On the south side of the Middle 
Hill, the excavation has reached the water-level. In the pit, 
large masses of light blue flinty and magnesian limestone are 
found imbedded with and surrounded by ore. They are de¬ 
void of regular form. In like manner, masses of quartz are 
found as bunches in the bedding of the more slaty ore. In 
some of these, thin scales of native arborescent copper occur, 
though not abundantly. The white cupreous quartz seems to 
be derived from a vein of that material. The limestone is evi¬ 
dently not in situ. 

On the Middle Hill several small veins or bunches of copper 
have been wrought to a limited extent. Four of these range 
north and south, with one exception dipping west. The direc¬ 
tion of the strike is at right angles to that of the iron ore, 
which dips north about 80° in this part of the mine. The 
thickness of these veins varies between half an inch and three 
inches. A fifth vein may be traced on an east and west range 
at the south limit of the mine. This lode is occasionally en¬ 
tirely absent, but is in some places a foot in thickness, dip 
south 45° to 50°. It should be remarked that these lodes of 
copper are thick where the iron ore is soft, and that they thin 
away when the bounding walls of the iron ore are hard and 
pyritous. The usual varieties of copper ore extracted are grey 
protoxide, bright red binoxide, green and blue carbonates of 
copper, intermixed with sesquioxide of iron and iron pyrites; 
also rich specimens of the sulphuret associated with green and 
blue carbonates of copper. r The lodes are nearly all accom¬ 
panied by veins of green steatite. They have not been traced 
across the ore-deposit to the bounding trap-rock, but have been 
found within 50 yards of it, growing perceptibly thinner. 
When followed below the surface, they become poor in good 
ore, and merge into copper and iron pyrites. The annual 
yield in copper ore does not exceed 100 tons. It is smelted in 
Baltimore, and yields, we are informed, from 15 to 23 per cent 
of copper. The average annual product of iron ore is about 
120,000 tons, but the mine is susceptible of being wrought 








THE PRIMARY IRON ORES. 


upon almost any scale. A small ore 
pit, from which no ore is at present ex¬ 
tracted, known as the Doner Mine, is 
situated one and a half miles east of 
Cornwall. The ore, though of the 
magnetic variety, appears in irregular 
bunches and nests. No trap injections 
are found in the vicinity. The deposit 
is quite near the limestone, and is inter¬ 
mixed with sand and gravel. 

By wliom the 577 cut on 
Mr. Rogers’s 719th page was 
executed he does not inform 
us, and it is comparatively re¬ 
cent. IIow Mr. Rogers, who 
prides himself upon being the 
inventor of orographic science 
can so lay himself open to the 
charge of not being able to 
read his own best sketches 
according to the plainest of 
the laws which he pretends 
to have himself discovered 
is strange. He talks of “ nu¬ 
merous injections of molten 
hot lava, resulting in dykes of 
trap rock, invading the stra¬ 
tum of ferruginous primal 
slate and still further chang¬ 
ing the condition of the mass, 
infusing among it, probably 
by sublimation, some trap- 
pean mineral matter,” etc. 
etc. But he does not appear 
to have even noticed the con¬ 
centric synclinal structure of 
this ore bed. Have we not 
here in fact a bottom lining 
of trap ; over this a precipita¬ 
tion of ore ; within this again a 
second canoe of trap ; then a 



a. Rich Iron Ore. 

b. Slaty Iron Ore and Slate, 
o. Solid Iron Ore , Slate fused. 

d. Solid Iron Ore and Copper Ore. 

e. Boulders of Magnetic Hematite 

and Trap. 


499 


Fig. 577. —Big Mine Ore Hill, Cornwall Iron Mines, Lebanon County. 













500 


PARI II.-DIVISION II. 


sediment of mingled mud and iron ; finally a third and most inte* 
rior precipitate of trap in the form of a very small canoe ? If his 
fig. 577 he worth anything it tells this tale and no other. Ilis fig. 
576 tells the same tale on the ground plan. Who ever heard of 
an oval ejection of lava dipping all round inwards like a woman’s 
baking-pan? Yet such is the rim of trap in fig. 575. And fig. 
576 carries out the explanation (although its lines of trap seem 
to have been forced, to avoid the consequence, or turned down¬ 
wards to suggest a common vent), by showing that originally the 
synclinal was a valley and when once filled with its successive 
precipitations of trap and iron ore and shale, has resisted the 
subsequent denudation and been left, as it ought to be according 
to the laws of topography, the summit of a hill, or range of hills. 
This is what Mr. Rogers’s figures teach, whatever his text may 
say and whatever the facts may be. It is quite possible that 
the trap, if igneous, overflowed horizontally in successive lavas, 
and was afterwards doubled up into the steep synclinal. But 
such a supposition would require other facts apparently not at 
hand. The disappearance of the southern edge of the dyke un¬ 
der the New Red debris (seepage 495) and the presence of lime¬ 
stone and flint boulders in the ore, with the presence of native 
copper crystallized, form a curious mixture of circumstances 
pointing to drainage from a Lower Silurian surface into a New 
Red basin without an outlet. The cross-veins of copper look 
like subsequently formed fissures, infiltrated with materials from 
the then overlying, or from the now neighboring New Red. 
And in one word the trap, since it holds the ore as in a cup, an¬ 
nounces its New Red age, for the trap is a New Red rock. 


BROWN 


CHAPTER H. 

THE BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 

The deposits of brown hematite are thrown into this chapter 
by themselves, not because they are a separate chemical or geo¬ 
logical formation from the primary ores discussed in Chapter I, 
but because they constitute practically and geographically a 
great group by themselves, and have, over and above this dis¬ 
tinction, certain chemical and geological characteristics also. 
Before treating them in view of their geological age and rela¬ 
tionships however, something more must be advanced in sup¬ 
port of views which are of practical value in theorizing and 
therefore in professionally practising in geology; views also, 
which are becoming standard in the science by virtue of the 
comparatively late triple alliance effected between chemists, 
mineralogists and structural geologists. Having just stated 
these views of the primary ores, and now again of the brown 
hematites, it will be needful to give a geological sketch of the 
palaeozoic or older secondary system of the American rocks, in 
the successive formations of which, from Ho. I the Potsdam 
sandstone at the base, to Ho. XII the coal measures at the top, 
these brown hematite beds occur. Then will come in place the 
detailed and local description of the deposits, with the iron 
works for which, in a Paleyozoic sense they were created. 

Bischof devotes many pages of his immense work to the 
metamorphosis of carbonate of iron (iron spar) into brown 
hematite and also into red hematite and magnetic iron ore, 1 and 
then proceeds to discuss the remarkable fact that brown hematite 
changes to red hematite, showing that the water of crystalliza¬ 
tion or composition escapes voluntarily at ordinary temperature, 
whereas in the chemist’s hands it refuses to go except at a white 
or glow heat. Analogous facts however ofier themselves in 
common life. Becquerel found iron bars in the foundations of 
an old castle converted into hydrated oxide, magnetic oxide and 


1 Geologie, i. p. 1341. 


502 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


peroxide, tlie latter showing itself as Elba crystals under the 
lens, and the magnetic oxide was likewise crystallized. R. Mal¬ 
let found long exposed and very old rust (brown hematite and 
more or less carbonate of iron) to have lost its water and become 
anhydrous red oxide. 

The bright red color of red oxide is no positive proof that it is 
anhydrous, and therefore some of the so-called red specular iron 
ores are probably more or less hydrous. Bischof got from a boiling 
solution of a peroxide iron salt, by adding a boiling alkali solution, 
a red (instead of a yellow) precipitate which yielded him 7.11 and 
finally 10.56 per cent water; and from a boiling solution of iron 
chloride with boiling salammoniac a still darker precipitate con¬ 
taining 15.26 water. The red color is therefore deceptive and 
must submit to a chemical test. Water boiled half an hour 
over iron ochre does not change its color. A change of color 
occurs only at the moment of production of hydrated oxide at 
boiling heat; not when hydrated oxide is treated with boiling 
water. The water percentage of the natural hydrate varies 
much. Herman’s spring ore contained 25.63 water; fibrous 
N hematite 14.71 water; needle ore, lepedokrokite, pyrosiderite, 
gdtliite, stelpnosiderite, etc. 10.31 water; Herman’s Uralian 
Tunga river ore 5.33 water. Most of these are deposited from 
cold water and seldom from hot water. Some of the differences 
may be produced by a gradual loss of water. In Rammels- 
berg’s range of analyses are many combinations which vary 
greatly from any atomic compound known. When amorphous 
brown hematite passes into red or anhydrous hematite crystals, 
we may suppose the water driven off by the very act of crystalli¬ 
zation, although there exists fibrous and needle-formed brown 
or hydrous hematite. 2 

In the reverse order the red hematites pass back into brown 
or hydrated hematite. On Elba, vast and deep bodies of this 
ore have been so changed, says Kranz. 3 It seems as if the po¬ 
rosity of a mass of specular ore must limit the action of waters 
upon it to effect this change. When limestone meets ironglanz 
as at Elba, the calcareous waters probably produce the change, 
and this has been the agency producing the brown hematite 
deposits along the outcrops of the Lower Silurian rocks of the 


2 Bischof, i. 1350. 


s Same. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


503 


United States. Kranz did not show proper cliange-pseudo- 
morphs of hydrous to anhydrous iron; hut Blum found such in 
Oberstein amethyst balls. 4 Sillem describes a specimen the upper 
layer of which is botryoidal red oxide, all under which has been 
converted into brown oxide, the latter penetrating the former 
from within outward, and a breccia of red oxide pebbles with 
limestone and quartz showing a passage to brown oxide from 
outside inward. Yolger devotes an opening chapter of great 
beauty to their exhibition in a specimen which he accidentally 
found in the collection of the Zurich college, where he teaches. 
The discussion to which it gives rise is of such importance to 
the subject that I give it as nearly as space will permit in his 
own words. 

“ The oxidized iron ores, the only ores of iron practically con¬ 
sidered by iron manufactures, are the oxydhydrate , the oxy dub- 
carbonate , the oxyd as well amorphous (haematite) as crystalline 
(glanz) and the magnet. These form a circle of development 
which has been set clearly before our eyes by the excellent 
labors of ITaidinger, especially in his paper on Der rotlie Glas- 
kopf eine Pseudomorphose nacli braunem, etc. Prag, 1846. 
A multitude of specimens from many localities have established 
and completely illustrated this circle. It would be a fair design 
to pursue this Protean metal through all its innumerable com¬ 
binations and construct the coordinated circles which should be 
connected with this as their primary type. There are materials 
enough collected—in fact the difficulty arises from their over¬ 
whelming abundance. As yet, we have not even the first glim¬ 
mer of the law which governs here and must be revealed to us 
hereafter. Iron cannot certainly assume the forms of all other 
minerals ; the number must be limited; in the limitation lies the 
law if fre had but made it. And the law of the lower limita¬ 
tions will reveal a more general law, a wider circle of these 
pseudomorphic phenomena, a grander system of mineral devel¬ 
opment.” 

In the collection at Zurich, Yolger alighted on a specimen 
which showed to his trained eye with the assistance of a micro¬ 
scope the changes above mentioned, in the order mentioned, 
but beginning with carbonate of lime, that is one step furthei 
back. A very elaborate description of this specimen he gives 


4 Biscliof, ii. 1351. 


504 


rART n. -DIVISION IT. 


on pages 223 to 233 of Lis Studien. It consists of five successive 
layers, two of calcspar and three of quartz, alternately arranged, 
so changed into the various ores of iron as to preserve the 
original crystallization of the spar and yet show all the steps of 
the process by which its substance came to be replaced. We 
have here, he then goes on to say, in a space of two inches, a 
great variety of phenomena, yes in a space sometimes scarcely 
a single line thick the whole perfected range of iron ores: iron 
spar, ironoxydhydrate, redironstone, ironglanz and magnetiron 
and all indubitably in genetic connection. The specimen should 
be labelled: Magnetiron, ironglanz and hematite in the form of 
(nacli, or after) ironoxydhydrate after ironspar in substitution- 
jpseudomorphs after calcspar. It is clear how the development 
has gone on. The more soluble calcspar was dissolved out and 
the less soluble ironoxydulcarbonate precipitated in its place. 
Ironspar exchanged its carbonic acid (in the change of oxydul 
to oxyd) for water. Water at a later date escaped again from 
combination. Iron oxyd remained, as an amorphous residuum 
of the oxydhydrate. Still later began this amorphous oxyd to 
crystallize. 

Native iron can undoubtedly issue from magnetic iron, but 
yet is nowhere seen to have done so in nature. Magnetic iron 
on the contrary which is the first or lowest phase of iron oxida¬ 
tion seen in nature (when sulphur and arsenic are absent) 
occurs as a pseudomorph of ironspar, that is, is found cast into 
the crystalline form or mould of carbonate-iron (oxydulcar- 
bonat). These are the two ends of the range or poles of the cir¬ 
cle of development above mentioned, between which lie all the 
others and especially the immense quantities of natural oxides 
or hematites. Yolger has shown, 5 and Blum has supported him 
in his demonstration, 6 how many pseudomorphs have not con¬ 
tented themselves with one but have taken several or even all 
the steps of this great range of change, and that both as to their 
whole mass bodily, or only as to their parts, atom by atom, some 
parts having gone further or changed more than others, and 
thus showing in a single specimen many or even all the steps of 
the process, all the stages of the development. Once there was 
a time when the egg, the worm, the pupa, the butterfly were 

6 Uber die pseudomorphosen der Fahlerze, in Poggend. Ann. 1849, Bd. 74, s. 25. 

6 Zweiter naclitrag zu dem pseudom. des Mineralreiches 1852, s. 87. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


505 


not known to be tlie same creature in successive stages of develop¬ 
ment. Now the whole law of the change is made out, and so is 
the analogous law of the crystalline transformation of carbonate- 
iron to hydrous hematite, then to amorphous anhydrous hema¬ 
tite, then to specular ore, and finally to magnetic ore. Iron 
glanz was the consequence; and this again losing some of its 
oxygen became magnetic iron. This and no other was the order 
of development. The facts speak for themselves. But there is 
no theory. How the development was energized is not ex¬ 
plained. The riddle of the causes is unread. We may imagine 
what agents or powers we please, the facts pronounced by 
the crystallization of this and similar specimens remain un¬ 
changed. So much we can say, that no fire agency would have 
left a hydrate here among the crystals. Haidinger’s celebrated 
Anogenesis and Katogenesis theory 7 can be shown to fail in the 
explanation, Volger thinks. The simplest explanation is the 
best. Waters holding in solution ironoxydsesquicarbonate 
replaces calcspar with ironspar. Water holding oxygen (in the 
absence of stronger deoxygenizing agents) attacking ironspar 
must convert it to ironliydrate. For the reduction of oxyd to 
oxydul (per- to prot-oxide) which evidently also occurred, we 
must call in the powerful deoxidizing organic substances sus¬ 
pended in all waters. That these were present the burnt smell 
of a pseudomorph heated to a glow in a glass bulb shows. But 
when we come to the change of the hydrate to anhydrate, and 
the anhydrate red mass to anhydrate black crystal, no explana¬ 
tion is at hand; we only know that the fact repeats itself infi¬ 
nitely in the iron mines of the world. 

Volger then gives, from page 236 on, the data for all these 
changes from the mining observations of the best writers of 
modern days. In treating of the peroxide showing itself in the 
forms of the hydrate, carbonate, etc. (page 248 to 264), Volger 
says: 

Rotheisenstein is amorphous oxide of iron; crystallized ox¬ 
ide, which seems red only when in the most delicately thin 
plates, as eisenrahm , by transmitted light, is ironglanz. The 
red iron reflects the red rays and therefore looks red. The crys¬ 
tallized iron lets the rays through and therefore remains black 


T Uber die Pseudomorphosen und ilire anogene und katogene Bildung, Prag, 1844. 


506 


PART ir.- DIVISION II. 


by reflection and is only red when semi-transparent, and held 
up to the sun. The distinction is not only curious but import¬ 
ant, affording another instance of a mineral existing in- two 
dissimilar forms or conditions. Iron oxide is merely the caput 
mortuum of the hydrate, a residue which can only appear in the 
form of that of which it is a residue, namely the hydrate. 
When it takes on a form of its own it becomes glance or specular 
iron. This formless or amorphous residue, whether as red glatz- 
kopf, or as compact, or as ochreous hematite, and this other 
crystallized residue, whether as translucent mica-iron* (eisen- 
rahrn), or as scaly ironglimmer, or as fine Elba specimens, pre¬ 
sent two stages of development in the history of iron ores. The 
red hematite never comes from specular ore; specular ore 
always comes from red hematite. In the red hematite 
either the unaided eye or the microscope can always detect the 

incipient crystallizations as fine black points. 

Magnetic iron is found changed into peroxide not only at the outcrop of veins 
but in the case of isolated crystals disseminated through rocks. The change is 
recognized by the old crystalline form being preserved. Blum finds octahedral 
peroxide in the Tyrol of a fine cherry red, with some of the crystals coated with 
red oxide; the coating sometimes burst and the ochre within protruding; the 
crystals scarcely or not at all magnetic. Also in Brazil and again in chlorite slates, 
some of the magnetic crystals changed and some still unchanged. Weibye describes 
such pseudomorphs with unchanged magnetic crystals and hornblende in Sweden. 
Rose describes multitudes of fine octahedrons partly hematized in serpentine. The 
change in all these cases is effected by the protoxide (30.98) joined with the perox¬ 
ide (69.02) in the compound magnetic ore taking to itself an additional 3.44 per cent 
of oxygen, when the whole mass becomes a homogeneous peroxide 3.44 per cent 
heavier than it was before, and 3.44 per cent bulkier also, seeing that the mean 
specific gravities of the two oxides are the same. When Martite is thus formed 
the increase of volume must amount to 8.62 per cent of what it was before. The 
thrust of various kinds of crystals variously lying athwart each others’ axes of 
polarity due to this increase of volume must occasion interstices and produce in turn 
a diminution of specific gravity. 8 

The deposit of hematite or the peroxide of iron is described by Bischof in con¬ 
nection with the decomposition of basalt to wacke and wacke to clayslate! 9 The 
peroxides of iron and manganese (brown iron stone and pyrolusite) obey so closely 
the same laws and are found so generally together that they must be treated alike 
in the discussion. Manganese is in extraordinary quantity in basalt (6.0 per cent), 
in which iron is much less abundant (0.6), and Bischof expresses his surprise that 
although a small amount of iron is found with oxide of iron in analyzing pyrolusite, 
he should never have been able to find a trace of the oxide of manganese with oxide 
of iron in analyzing brown iron stone. His query is why should the two metals so 
kindred be so utterly disallied and separated in a common decomposition ? The 


8 Bischof, ii. p. 600. 


9 Geologie, ii. p. 805. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


50T 


reply is, of course, to throw doubt on the fact of their common origin from basalt; 
a suggestion which of itself is startling enough to a geologist. He offers however a 
more acceptable alternative, viz., a common decomposition from wacke (sandstone 
or sandy slate). The oxides of both metals have undoubtedly been leached out of 
masses of sedimentary rocks and deposited where the leaching fluids found a quiet 
level, whether inside or outside of the surface. 

At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. Hayes 
3tated that he had proved, from careful analysis and examinations of pseudomorphs, 
as well as the more ordinary forms of hematite, that the infiltration of an aqueous 
solution of silicates of proto-peroxides of iron and manganese, caused the production 
of hematite. The beautiful black, glossy covering, which confers so much beauty on 
the ores of iron not truly hematites, as well as the ore of manganese, is always com¬ 
posed of silicate of proto-peroxide of iron, with silicate of one or both oxides of 
manganese ; and the compact peroxides of manganese, often owe their density and 
hardness to this compound. 1 

It lias been already remarked how intimately the hematites 
and sulphurets are related in all rocks, primary or metamorphic 
and also secondary or unchanged, and equally or even in a still 
higher degree in the tertiary or recent deposits. The great 
double-sulphuret beds of Tennessee and Virginia as well as less 
well known sulphur-iron gneiss rocks of the azoic system have 
been seen to pass at the surface into brown hematite beds. So 
do all the sulphuret and carbonate beds of the palaeozoic and 
kainozoic systems, whether they be great or small, more or less 
impure, whatever be their alloying contents, whatever be their 
structural status or lithological arrangement. In fact we are 
almost ready for the expression of a general law that all iron 
ores beneath the surface crystallize into magnetite, and at the 
surface into limonite. At the surface in such a formula must 
of course be understood to mean as far down as the disin¬ 
tegrating influences of the atmospheric waters reach; and by 
all ores must be meant a general term which takes for granted 
as already known the chemico-sedimentary varieties of original 
deposit. It is true that muds and marls of every geological age 
have accepted and retained sulphur in combination with iron in 
proportion to the amount of organic matter then existing on the 
surface of the earth, or at least within their water-basins. But 
no one has yet succinctly and demonstrably made out the exact 
steps of the process by which these sulphurets of iron became 
limonite or brown hematite deposits. Nor will the attempt be 
made here which has always, at least partially, failed in the ablest 


1 Annual of Sci. Dis. 1858, p. 295. 


rAKT II.-DIVISION II. 


K • O 

0> b 


hands. It will be enough to point out what has been and is 
still the course of inquiry and discovery in this direction. 

Iron pyrites in stone coal is a universal accident well discussed 
by Yon Declien and Schmidt, 2 which last mentions (what every 
one conversant with many coal fields must be aware of by his 
own observation) the occurrence in coal beds of pieces of wood 
half turned into lignite and half into pyrites. In many cases 
the whole form is occupied by pyrites. Ndggerath informed 
Biscliof in conversation that the appearance of pyrites with 
lignite (holz or faser-kohle, faserige anthracit) so common in 
stone coal repeats itself in the brown coal beds of the Lower 
Bliine. The faserkohl occurs precisely in those beds where the 
pyrites abounds and especially those explored for the alum 
factories; is more or less surrounded by or inclosed in pyrites or 
gypsum; and is accompanied by brown iron ore evidently 
derived from pyrites. The oxidation of the organic remains 
(wood, etc.) has decomposed the sulphur salts, hydrogen being 
probably the first oxidized, and the carbonization going on 
thereby more rapidly. The sulphuric acid being set free seizes 
on the oxide of iron in the vegetable matter and forms pyrites. 
The organic soluble materials have disappeared from solid stone 
and brown coal, and perhaps one part (sulphate of potassa) has 
given its sulphur to help form the pyrites. Bed birch wood 
ashes contain enough sulphuric acid and oxide of iron for 48,077 
parts of this kind of wood to make one part of pyrites. A log 
of 20 cubic feet could afford 130^ grains of pyrites. Moreover its 
proportion of iron is 23 times as much as its sulphur requires 
and is therefore on hand to make that much more pyrites when 
sulphur-waters come along. The needle-leaf trees are still more 
abundant in these materials than the broad leaf trees, and they 
were the trees of the older coal measures. The fir can make 10 
times as much pyrites as the beech. Bo wonder then that 
pyrites is so universal a constituent of rocks of every age, since 
oxide of iron, salts of sulphur and organic remains have never 
been wanting in any age. The fucous class of plants, the sea¬ 
weeds, which preceded higher vegetations are eminently rich 
in sulphuric acid. Nineteen analyses by Forchhammer give a 
range from 1.28 up to 8.50 (the mean being 3.82) per cent of 

2 Noggerath, das Gebrige in Rheinland-Westphalen, ii. 1 + iv. 1 +. See Bischof, 
page 922. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


509 


sulphuric acid, combined with potassa, soda and lime. When 
fucus vesiculosus for example is allowed to decompose, its fer¬ 
mentation in a few days gives off carbonic acid and results in 
alcohol, when the change of the sulphur salts to sulphur metals 
sets in, developing sulphuretted hydrogen to such a degree on 
some coasts, e. g. at Copenhagen, as to tarnish family plate in 
the chests of country seats. Let iron oxide now be at hand and 
pyrites must form, the oxygen passing from it to ally itself with 
the potassium, calcium and sodium of the sea-weed. An iron 
spring issues from the oolite in the island Bornholm among sea¬ 
weed and covers the whole bed of the sea w T ith a beautiful 
yellow coating of pyrites; but where the waves flow and ebb 
and this pyrites is left periodically exposed to the air, it turns to 
sulphate of the peroxide of iron. So ferruginous clays when 
they cover up sea-weed present to it the needful elements for 
pyrites, which afterwards forms sulphate of protoxide of iron, 
and if lime is wanting, finally becomes sulphate of alumina; if 
present, then gypsum. Hence the abundance of alum and 
pyrites in the palaeozoic shales and slates. The oldest silurian 
rocks of Scandinavia contain mighty deposits of alum slates, in 
which the naked eye can detect no pyrites, except in particular 
layers where it is especially abundant. 

If the ultraplutonists, says Bischof, allow that pyrites can 
form in the wet way in sedimentary rocks, they nevertheless 
insist upon its appearance in plutonic rocks where it must, they 
think, have an igneous origin. But when we examine its origin 
there more closely it will turn out to be secondary. There is 
scarcely a kind of crystallized stone in which pyrites does not 
here and there occur, old granite, gneiss, mica-slate, chlorite- 
slate, syenite, porphyry, and young basalt, diorite, dolerite, tra¬ 
chyte, hornblendite, serpentine, alike, not in the cracks but in 
the body of the rock, and sometimes so finely that its presence 
is not suspected until the surface weathers to a brown hematite 
hue. But either these crystalline rocks possessed originally the 
pyritous elements or else waters possessing them have permeated 
these rocks. In the first sense sulphuric alkalies are common in 
crystalline rocks, and iron never fails. If room be wanted it is 
obtained when, for instance, the 23 per cent of sulphur in sul¬ 
phate of soda unites with the 66 per cent of iron in oxide of 
iron, making pyrites of a much less bulk than the original com* 


510 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


pounds. Into the iron thus made mountain-waters bring in new 
materials, and from these again new installments of pyrites are 
made. If the small quantity of sulphate of soda in the original 
rock be objected, there are other more copious sources at hand. 3 
The ultraplutonists must acknowledge that if heat were applied 
to a rock holding pyrites, it would drive off some of the sulphur 
and leave a lower sulphide. To escape this difficulty they resort 
to the hypothesis of pressure. It is true by experiment that 
pressure can retain the volatile elements of a compound; but no 
experiment has ever shown that pressure can reverse the rela¬ 
tionships of the elements of a compound. Barruel heated 
intensely in thick pistol-barrels a mixture of carbonate of lime 
and pyrites, yet the natural interchange was made and sulphide 
of calcium resulted. Can the plutonists say that were the 
pressure greater the sulphur and the iron would have been kept 
apart ? Where then is their sulphide of calcium in their tire 
rocks? Heat pyrites with basalt, diorite or any other silicate 
of lime under strong pressure and sulphide of calcium must 
result. Certainly it would if the basalt etc. contained calc- 
spar. By all that has been said (concludes Bischof) we know 
that every pyrites, occur where it may, must be regarded as a 
secondary formation originating chemically in the moist way. 4 

Iron pyrites Berzelius found could be made out of powdered 
or amorphous peroxide with sulphuretted-hydrogen. The little 
particles of disseminated pyrites seen through a microscope (says 
Bischof) of from 70 to 600 linear magnifying power, show right 
angles, suggesting the cubic form, but perhaps due to a tabular 
crystallization ; under the highest powers they show hairy rays 
issuing in indeterminate directions. 6 

The proportion of sulphur in the earth must be very great 
when we remember the volumes of sulphurous gases issuing 
without intermission from all active volcanoes and solfataras 
and from many caverns and springs. The vapors of the Colum¬ 
bian crater Parace form solid crusts of sulphur eighteen inches 
thick, and cover wood exposed for a few days with a coating of 
crystals. The inaccessible rocks around the great Armenian 
volcano Alaghez are so covered with it, that the inhabitants 
shoot it down with rifle bahs. The Japanese call their Tanao* 


3 Geologie, i. p. 930. 


4 Vol. i. p. 936. 


6 Gdologie, ii. p. 278. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


511 


sima and Jevo-sima sulphur islands. The caves of the Grecian 
Milo are full of sulphur and alum, and the floor of sulphurous 
earth burns blue like the surface of Milton’s pandemonian lake. 
Sicily is the sulphur market of Europe, preparing its ware by 
melting a clay which contains it in mechanical admixture. 6 In 
all ages sulphur and clay were deposited together; and from 
these under-ground deposits rise the innumerable sulphur- 
springs; like salt wells from deposits of salt and sandstone. 
The earliest ages of the planet, when volcanic movements were 
more numerous and on a grander scale, the sea continually 
received accessions of sulphates from the land and pure sulphur 
from the air, so that there is not a slate formation in the palaeo¬ 
zoic series which is not charged with sulphuret of iron in dis¬ 
seminated crystals, and with native sulphur in fine threads and 
seams within its cleavage planes. Considering the fact that sul¬ 
phuret of iron is more abundant in the coal measures than in 
any other formation, and the fact that plants 7 and animals 8 
contain sulphur in their physical composition, its presence in the 
shales or clay formations might be ascribed to the presence in 
all river, beach and shore muds, in the bottom of ponds and 
marshy springs, of finely comminuted vegetable and animal mat¬ 
ter. So far as the rocks range down from the present age to 
the beginning of the animal and vegetable life, throughout the 
quarternary, tertiary and secondary eras the explanation is suf¬ 
ficient for its purpose; but when all evidences of life upon the 
planet disappear, the explanation fails. It is true that the 
apparent first appearance of organized creatures may not be the 
true beginning of organized life. The scolithus linearis worm- 
tube casts of the Potsdam sandstone at the base of the Palaeozoic 
system in America, have their analogues not only in the Lower 
Silurian rocks of western England but far down below them in 
the Cambrian or primary sand and mud slates of a greatly older 
date. Nevertheless, throughout the primary Iluronian system 
beneath the Potsdam sandstone of Canada and the Atlantic 
seaboard, and throughout the still vaster and older Laurentian 
system beneath it, wherein no trace of organized life has ever 

e Von Leonhard, trans. Balt. 1839, p. 99. 

7 For example garlic and other liliaceae, mustard and other cruciferae, assafatida and 
other umbelliferge. 

8 In their eggs, urine, etc. 


512 


PAliT II.-DIVISION II. 


been seen, sulphur abounds. The argument is still but nega¬ 
tive, for the metamorphic agency may have obliterated the traces 
of organized life; but for the present we must consider sul¬ 
phur to be a primary and volcanic rock in mass, and appropriated 
upon their appearance afterwards by the physical economy of 
living creatures. The mud sediments of succeeding palaeozoic 
and tertiary ages may then be looked upon as charged with 
sulphur through their death and decomposition. 

The presence of the carbonate of iron and the sulphuret of 
iron together in the clayslate formations is a chemical problem 
of some difficulty. When sulphuret of iron receives oxygen, 
becomes sulphate of iron and meets carbonate of lime (lime¬ 
stone), it exchanges its iron for lime and there is produced 
sulphate of lime (gypsum); but never carbonate of iron ; always 
oxide of iron, brown hematite, bog ore. In the coal measures 
sulphuret of iron is abundant in the coal beds, sulphate of iron 
flows abundant down the streams and through the rocks, but the 
limestone beds are never changed to gypsum. The exceptions 
in Nova Scotia, southern Virginia and elsewhere only make the 
rule more glaringly legible. The limestones wear away in 
caverns, their cleavage cracks become wide fissures, and they 
receive in these and upon their upper surfaces loads of brown 
hematite iron ore with traces of zinc and lead thrown down 
upon them by a leaching process, which involves the sulphuret 
of iron disseminated through the rocks; but they never become 
gypsum. These beds of brown hematite show however by their 
very posture that the carbonate of iron, distributed in plates, in 
balls and in the finest granular dissemination through the shales 
above, and not the sulphuret of iron, was their original. Whatever 
sulphuret of iron there is among the balls of carbonate serves 
only to make the brown hematite beds a little sulphurous and 
their ore a little red-short. So far as the coal measures are con¬ 
cerned, therefore the brown hematites are ores deposited not 
from pyritous slates but from shales surcharged with more or 
less segregated carbonate of iron. Whence then this carbo¬ 
nate ? It is said that when the oxidized pyrites or sulphate of 
iron meets the carbonate of lime the latter carries oft* the sul¬ 
phuric acid and the iron becomes limonite and then red oxide. 

Regarding for the present only the older brown hematite ores; 
in the second annual report of the Pennsylvania geological sur- 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


513 


vey 9 Mr. Rogers expresses in a sufficiently open way his original 
views of these beds, as resultants of a general ferruginous mud 
deposit against the notfth base of the South mountain, it acting 
as breakwater to a deluge coming from the north. dSTo such the¬ 
ory, involving the same errors that lie at the base of Prof. Hitch¬ 
cock’s tertiary hypothesis, appears in the first volume of his 
Final Report, and therefore it is proper to suppose that he has 
abandoned it. He does not even repeat his observation that the 
principal beds of brown hematite occur along the southern or 
lower margin of the Lower Silurian Limestone II; those along 
the northern or upper margin being abnormal or occasional. Any 
ocean, of tertiary or any other age, covering the Appalachian 
belt of parallel mountains and valleys, must be conceived as do¬ 
ing so either at once or gradually, either forcibly or gently, and 
as either deep or shallow. If at once and forcibly, from the north¬ 
ward, then all the brown hematite beds should lie along the north 
bases of all the mountains. It is needless to say that they do not; 
in fact a topographical denudation theory established on such a 
basis breaks down at every point. If the ocean was a deep and 
gradual submersion of the continent and quiet in its action, except 
like all oceans around its shores, its deposits would be very ho¬ 
mogeneous, and then local rich brown hematite beds would be im¬ 
possible. If the ocean were shallow in the back valleys against the 
Alleghany mountains it would be deep in the great front valley, 
and produce quite different effects over the self-same formations. 
If it were shallow in the great valley it would leave the back 
valleys dry and without deposits. But the absence of all true 
terraces, raised beaches and universal deposits contemporaneous 
with any such submergence sets the question of a quiet ocean-co¬ 
vering at rest. On the other hand, one of Roger’s emigrating 
polar oceans would be much more likely to clean out the lime¬ 
stone valleys of their brown hematite deposits than furnish them 
with these. There remains then only the hypothesis of local 
weathering, with freshets, pools, swamps, and what not, requisite 
to fill deep cavities left by the original violent denudation of the 
surface to its present level. In this hypothesis local ferruginous 
rocks supply materials close at hand for local deposits of brown 
hematite ; and as these ferruginous rocks will occupy constant 
positions in the series of the formations, the brown hematite 

9 1838, p. 28. 

33 


\ 






514 - 


part II.—DIVISION II. 


deposits from their wear ftnd tear will lie in outcrop lines upon 
the mass. As the ferruginous formations are principally slates 
containing sulphuret of iron and native sulphur, the brown he¬ 
matites will lie along the borders of the slate formations, I, II, 
Y, VIII, XIII, against the face of lower compact sandstone or 
massive limestone formations as the case may be. Hor must it 
be overlooked that the heaviest deposits of these brown hema¬ 
tites have been where the rocks receiving them lie pretty flat 
and the ideal section lines of the ferruginous slates rise but a few 
feet or yards above them into the air. The cause of the subse¬ 
quent denudation of the latter may be hard to explain, but as we 
know that decomposition reduces hard ferruginous slate-masses 
to a brown soft clay pulp under which lie the concreted layers 
of brown hematite ore, the same process w r ould allow the slates 
thus turned to clay to be entirely swept off by any sufficient 
subsequent denuding agency and the hard ore below to remain 
behind. 

Whitney pronounces the brown hematites of western Massa¬ 
chusetts of tertiary age, 1 and refers to the careful studies made 
of them by Mr. Hodge. 2 But Mr. Hodge is convinced that Dr. 
Hitchcock’s tertiary theory of these deposits has been too hastily 
adopted. 

“ It has long been known to geologists,” says Dr. Hitchcock, 3 
“ that numerous deposits of brown hematite iron ore, associated 
with ochres and mottled clays, occur, in connection with a 
highly ferruginous limestone and micaceous and argillaceous 
slates, through the whole distance from Canada to Georgia; ly¬ 
ing along the west side of the crystalline and liypozoic strata of 
the Green, Hoosac and some ranges of the Appalachian moun¬ 
tains. Ho geologist has doubted that these deposits were all 
contemporaneous ; but their true age has been a mystery. Dur¬ 
ing the year 1852, my attention was drawn to one of these de¬ 
posits, in Brandon, Vermont, which has the peculiarity of con¬ 
taining a bed of carbonaceous matter twenty feet thick, with 
fifteen or twenty species of fossil fruits. The leading result of 
my examination is, that the Brandon deposit belongs to a ter¬ 
tiary formation, and the carbonaceous matter is very much like 


1 Metallic Wealth, p. 460-1. 8 Amer. R. R. Journal, No. 684. 

3 In his Geology of the Globe, page 105. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


515 


the brown coal of Germany. And since that, for the most part, 
belongs to the Pliocene or newer tertiary, we may provisionally 
place the Vermont deposit in the same place, and, by parity of 
reasoning, all the brown hematite beds, extending at least 
twelve hundred miles through the United States. So confident 
am I of the soundness of these conclusions, that I have ventured 
to mark a strip of tertiary on the map near the line along which 
the hematite beds occur, although they are not always in a con¬ 
tinuous line, but scattered over a considerable breadth of sur¬ 
face. I do not, however, regard it so certain that this deposit is 
Pliocene tertiary, that I have ventured to mark it as such, but 
only as tertiary.” 

“ The fruits of the Brandon deposit are beautifully preserved, 
but they are quite peculiar, and as yet their affinities have not 
been made out. A few of them are represented on the plates 
(95, 96). A full account of them, with the inferences, is given 
in the American Journal of Science for January, 1853.” 

We respectfully dissent from the opinion expressed in this pas¬ 
sage that “ no geologist has doubted that these deposits were all 
contemporaneous.” On the contrary, the fact that they occur 
in belts along the outcrops of different limestones of very widely 
different ages is prima facie evidence that they themselves are 
of different ages. Were they of one age , in the ordinary sense 
in which the terms are used, and especially were they all of ter¬ 
tiary age, deposited long subsequent to the uplifting and denud¬ 
ing of the older rocks on which they lie, then, as every geologist 
will grant, they would be found outspread indifferently on any 
one or all of the older deposits, precisely as the coal measures 
of Illinois are seen to lie. ' They certainly would not be confined 
precisely to the limestone valleys, and precisely to the lines or 
bands of limestone outcrop; so that Lower Silurian Formation 
No. II has its own set, and Upper Silurian Formation No. VI 
has its own set. Still less would this particular arrangement of 
localities extend a thousand miles. And least of all would it 
become so minutely careful of its alliances as always to attach 
the ore deposits to particular members of these limestone forma¬ 
tions, as for example to the lower part of No. II, and to two or 
more belts in the lower part of No. II. The distinguished and 
revered geologist of Amherst had studied these ores within the 
limits of the most metamorphic, disturbed and difficult section 


516 


I ART II.—DIVISION II. 


of tlie Appalachian range, as Dr. Emmons did the Lower 
Silurian Formations themselves, mistaking them on that account 
for an older Taconic system. Where they spread out unchanged 
to the southwest they reveal their character. So with these 
brown hematite ore beds; when studied in Pennsylvania and 
Virginia they are seen to be not contemporaneous and late, in 
the sense applied, but attaches of very old formations of diffe¬ 
rent dates. 

In one sense however they are contemporaneous deposits. 
They are the weathered or perhaps they are the degraded out¬ 
crops of the Silurian limestone formations on which they lie. 
If weathered merely, they belong to that unknown epoch subse¬ 
quent to the coal when this part of the continent emerged, its 
topography fashioned, and its outcrops offered to the atmospheric 
agencies. Subsequently, intenser action than mere atmospheric 
was, perhaps repeatedly, applied to these outcrops and how much 
of an accumulation of brown hematite ore and sand and clay 
was produced at one and how much at another time cannot be 
demonstrated or perhaps even estimated. Certainly it is not 
credible that, if all these local effects were produced at one time, 
and that a tertiary time, the evidences of the era in tertiary 
fruits etc. would be confined to one small point at the extreme 
northern limit of the range, to Brandon and its lignite bed 
alone. 

But more than this, if more be needed, there is no sufficient 
evidence upon the ground at Brandon in Vermont that the 
brown hematite, the lignite and the kaolin, are related to each 
other in any such fixed way as to insure the fact that they are, 
fer se and not as a mere local and exceptional deposit, contem¬ 
poraneous. This lignite bed is one of the most extraordinary 
and unaccountable items in our thesaurus of geological events; 
a plug of coal; no bed ; not horizontal; vertically or obliquely 
plunged, stem like, towards the centre of the earth; faced on one 
side with kaolin and impinging on the other against one of 
several deposits of brown iron ore. One might almost as well 
argue the age of an old oak from the analysis of an iron wedge 
found imbedded beneath its bark. 

Kaolin is the clay which fills the hollows of the surface, or 
composes its subsoil, in the vicinity of granite and gneiss rocks 
consisting in large part of soda-feldspar. Potassa-feldspar does 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


517 


not disintegrate, but soda-feldspar does, the surface of the rock 
becoming in the rain a paste of kaolin which slips or is washed 
down to its base or carried off by rills and brooks to be deposited 
in still water pools. Such was undoubtedly the origin of the 
Brandon deposit, and tertiary leaves and fruit were washed into 
the same hole perhaps at the same time. 

This Brandon deposit of clay, lignite, oxide of iron and oxide 
of manganese, covered with sand and sunk in a pit of limestone, 
finds a curious parallel in the Balymacadam clay and lignite 
deposit in county Tipperary in Ireland, which is in like manner 
walled by Mountain Limestone and occupies not over an acre 
and a half. The clay is white or bluish, more or less pure, 
smooth and tenacious; the lignite, brown and decomposed, partly 
scattered through the clay, but found in a bed of varying thick¬ 
ness at a depth of 15 feet under it. Under these fragments of 
trees lies pure white soapy clay. 4 Sink holes occur in the 
neighborhood, and doubtless all such deposits are of tertiary or 
some late age, made in sink holes the egress from which below 
has been accidentally sealed. 

Professor Rogers with his usual quickness of perception and 
as early as in his report of 1836 6 on the geology of New Jersey, 
without alluding to the tertiary theory, stated the alternative of 
leathering or denudation ; since the ores are only found in 
limestone 6 they must be originally connected with it; either as 
already formed deposits denuded into sight along the present 
section line of surface; or as disseminated through the limestone 
and collected by the drainage into surface inequalities. He 
gives no preference to one or other of these two explanations, 
further than one in favor of the first may be implied by stating 
that common columnar or pipe ore has been discovered mixed 
with ferruginous loam and inclosed in limestone near Belvedere, 
the cavities being several feet in diameter. “We may suppose 
that many such exist,” he adds, “ and that the reduction or 
breaking up of the strata by slow or violent agencies has 
scattered the hematite through the superficial soil.” We may 
also suppose these cavities of any size, by supposing original 


* Brit. Ass. 1857. A. B. Wynne. r. 116 - 

« The Pochunk mountain and other ores are inclosed in clays between the gneiss and 

limestone. 


PART IT.-DIVISION IT. 


olS 

deposits of not a few lmndredweiglit hut many thousand tons 
of iron in the Lower Silurian limestone era. 

These beds of brown hematite iron ore impress the reverent 
mind with the same admiration and gratitude that the poets and 
orators of science have so well expressed in view of the exhaust¬ 
less stores of coal. If Faraday could grow eloquent over “the 
silent, tranquil, ever progressing, metamorphic changes involved 
in the phenomena of decomposition and decay ” contrasted with 
the spasmodic efforts of nature, majestic and imposing though 
they be, and bespeaking our observation and riveting our 
attention by their occasional grandeur, there is no enthusiasm 
more judicious and well ordered by its objects than that of the 
iron manufacturer who sees in these concealed deposits the 
wisdom and affection of the Creator for his future offspring. 
Inexhaustible provision of fuel on one side and equally inex¬ 
haustible provision of stock on the other; the carbon concen¬ 
trated into coal and kept pure and strong for its work, here, by 
the same eternally operating laws of decay which, there, has 
concentrated, softened and weakened the ore for its transmuta¬ 
tion into iron. In both cases half the work is done, and done 
for man before he was brought upon the ground. In both cases 
he lias half the work still left to do, by which his powers may 
be improved. Had the coal been stored away as wood, the 
labor of mining would have been added to that of charring; and 
had the iron not been oxidized and gathered into heaps, it 
would have remained forever out of man’s reach or defied for 
endless generations his metallurgic skill. Nature meets man 
half way; she oxidized the ore for the ancients to teach them 
how to smelt, and kept back her anthracite until the apparatus 
of the moderns was prepared to use such concentrated energy. 

The series of which the coal formation is the last lias received 
the now generally accepted name of Palaeozoic, or the rocks 
containing the relics of the Ancient Life. Those which follow 
the coal are called rocks of the Middle Life, Mesozoic. Those 
which belong to the most recent times and to our own new life, 
are called Kainozoic. In the great hematite belt of the United 
States, we are concerned only with the Palaeozoic strata 'which 
underlie the coal for which they form a floor, in some parts seven 
miles thick. Along the banks of the Schuylkill, Susquehanna, 
Juniata, Potomac, and New Rivers, they are so thrown up and 


Sections in Pennsylvania across the Palaeozoic Strata , Silurian and Carboniferous. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES 


510 


stand upon their edges that they can be measured directly 
through from top to bottom, from the coal down to the Potsdam 

Fig. 8. 






































































520 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Fig. 9. 


I South Mt’n. 


Great Valley... 5 


Chambersburg.. 


The Cove Fault. 




m 


sandstone, No. I; and this not once or twice, but many times, 
as they alternately rise and fah in a succession of vaults and 

basins; the basins being solidly pre¬ 
served beneath the surface, but the 
vaults swept away into the Atlantic. 
(See Fig. 8, representing three sec¬ 
tions north and south through Mauch- 
chunk, Pottsville and Harrisburg in 
Pennsylvania; through theKittatinny, 
Second, Sharp, and Peters’ mountains.) 
The coal and other upper measures, 
where they spanned the vaults, are of 
course gone. Where they remain, 
they exist in narrow troughs along the 
centre lines of the great basins. As 
we ascend the Atlantic rivers to their 
heads, .and approach the Alleghany 
mountain, these vast flexures of the 
crust suddenly give place to broad low 
arches, and shallow troughs, permit¬ 
ting the coal measures with their car¬ 
bonate iron ores a wide expanse in 
each, as seen in the accompanying 
diagram, Fig. 9, which represents a 
section through Chambersburg and 
Greensburg in Pennsylvania. Finally 
the whole becomes nearly flat, and 
the coal spreads out and covers all, 
far into Ohio, Kentucky, and Ten¬ 
nessee. Then a broad wave brings up 
the under parts of the floor again 
across the western parts of Ohio and 
Indiana, and the coal, of course, is 
swept away. Beyond this, in Michi¬ 
gan, Western Kentucky and Illinois 
and far into Iowa and Missouri, the 
coal comes on again in fragmentary 
sheets and isolated patches deposited 
upon different portions of the floor, 


Sidelong Hill... 

Broad Top o 

Basins. 55 


Tussy Mountain. » 


Bedford.» 




Alleghany Mt’n. 


Negro Mt’n. 


Laurel Hill.e« 

<v 

a 


Chestnut Ridge, g 
o 






Greensburg., 
















BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


521 


according as tliat iiad been more or less cut through by the 
previous action of the denuding forces, until in western Missouri 
and Kansas it broadens into a continental field greater than its 
eastern Appalachian area but so concealed beneath the Mesozoic 
and Kainozoic systems that only its western edges are perceived 
where they emerge aganst the first ranges of the Rocky moun¬ 
tains. 

This immense floor of Palgeozoic rocks consists of four distinct 
repetitions on a grand scale of conglomerate and sandstone 
rocks, marking four great epochs of oceanic activity during the 
Palaeozoic age, and of mud and limestone rocks between them, 
which were deposited during long alternate intervals of peace. 
Each of these four sand-rocks marks a new era in the geology, 
introduces a new creation of plant and animal, and draws its 
own distinct and separate topographical lines across the face of 
the earth. That complicated system of mountains jvhich begins 
at the Hudson and ends in Alabama, obeying to the eye (even 
as obscurely drawn upon the common maps) evident laws of 
fixed relationship and parallelism, is seen to be, when studied 
out, merely the repeated outcrops or edges of these four great 
sand-rocks as they rise upon the waves or plunge again into the 
basins side by side. And the valleys which always follow round 
and forever keep apart the mountains whichever way they run, 
or however they may double back upon their course or fold 
themselves in zigzags, are in like manner the outcrops or edges 
of the softer intermediate limestones, slates and shales. 

To understand the causes of these topographical or geographi¬ 
cal appearances when these are portrayed on a map or studied 
on the ground it is necessary to recognize the few and simple 
laws which govern the construction and define the forms of 
mountains. 

A Mountain has three Elements, top, side, and end, and 
the primary discussion of a mountain is that of its slopes, its 
crest-line, and its termini. Gaps are irregularities in its crest- 
line, as terraces are in its slopes. The cross-section of a moun¬ 
tain shows why its slopes, and usually also why its crest-line 
and its termini are not only what they are, but could not be 
different. It is a deep set feeling among men that if there be 
accidental forms upon earth they are to be found in mountains. 

There could not be a greater mistake; for if there be natural 


522 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


forms unalterably predestined by the direction and intensity of 
natural forces they are those of mountains. Not a wrinkle in 
the side, not a notch in the crest, not a flexure in the trend of a 
mountain or a hill but is an evidence of laws which have 
operated upon it with the nicest precision. Not a ravine, not a 
rod of cliff, not a waterfall, but exists in the immediate vicinity 
of its own explanations. The place where a stream breaks 
through, however apparently accidental, was determined by 
positive relationships between the rocks of the locality; nor can 
any investigation be more exciting than that which rewards 
itself with perpetual discoveries of cause and effect in a wilder¬ 
ness of apparent lawlessness and unexplained confusion. 

The Mountain Slope. —To illustrate the influence which its 
interior structure has upon the form of a mountain, the accom¬ 
panying series of cross sections are introduced. The first set 
show how a stratum of sand-rock or other hard material, inclosed 
in softer stuff, arranges the height and slopes of its mountain to 



suit its own dip. When it is vertical the mountain is low, 
sharp, and symmetrical; at 60°, it is higher with a front side 
long; at 30°, higher still, with a long, gently sloping back, and 
short steep front covered with angular fragments from a range 
of cliffs above; when horizontal, the mountain is at its maxi¬ 
mum height, forming a tableland with precipices and steep 
slopes in front. It is needless to suggest the infinite variations 
of this simplest law of mountain form. 

When two such sand-rocks lie in neighborhood they of course 
form a double mountain, subject to the same vicissitudes of 
external aspect in view of similar changes of internal structure. 
It is not so easy to show the effect of these changes under 
another influence, that of subsidence beneath a universal plane 
of denudation. The attempt, however, is made in the following 
sets of cross sections. It must be understood that a mountain 
whose rocks stand vertical or horizontal at one point may show 
them much inclined at others (its form will change to suit), and 
also, that as mountains are but fragments of the upper layers of 







% 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


523 


the earth’s crust preserved from the general denudation and 
translation by lying lower than the rest, in hollows or synclinals 
as they are technically called, these synclinals as they rise above 
or sink below the average level or line of denudation will give 
up to destruction more or less of their contents. In other 
words, when a geologist traverses one of these geological basins 
lengthwise he finds the highest rocks in its deepest parts, and 
the lowest rocks in its shallowest or highest parts. The cross 
sections given below are arranged to show the coming in of 
higher and higher rocks as the basin sinks, and the conse¬ 
quent changes of form which the mountain or mountains 
undergo. 

In every Shallow synclinal there is a high, narrow, flat- 
topped mountain, with precipices on both sides looking down 
upon the lowlands. Such is the struc¬ 
ture of the Catskill, Towanda, Bloss- 
burg, and other mountains in the 
north, and the Cumberland mountains 
of Tennessee and Alabama. As the 
basins deepen, other higher sand-rocks 
come in above, and double the precipices and slopes; finally 
the whole is cleft in two, and the drainage, after traversing the 
parted mountain often for many miles, breaks out sideways into 
the plain. It is evident that it was due to the direction of the 
original currents setting along the centre of the geological basin 
before the cutting developed the present mountain. 

The Sharp synclinal shows this more clearly, with this 
difference, however, that its longitudinal central cutting is never 
a ravine, but always a valley. The hard 
rocks pass off in diverging crests ter¬ 
raced and gashed, inclosing one another, 
and giving place to mountain within 
mountain, in a series that has no limit 
but the number of hard beds in the 
system of formations. Their precise 
inclination with the horizon makes no 
essential difference in the action so long 
as the synclinal remains a simple one; but the moment this 
becomes compound then all manner of complications inaugurate 
















524 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 




themselves upon the surface and present a thousand puzzles to 

the skill of the geologist, as in the fourth 
set, which more or less nearly repre¬ 
sents the wrinkled compound synclinals 
of the anthracite coal region. 

The Anticlinal structure is the re¬ 
verse of the synclinal, and has its own 
infinite system of forms ecpially subor¬ 
dinated to the general laws of denuda¬ 
tion, and in many respects curious in¬ 
verted parodies of those above. In 
fact, as may be seen in the fifth and 
last set, the moment the huge back of 
an anticlinal mountain splits into two, 
we lose the anticlinal as a character of 
the mountain while it remains in the 
valley, until from the centre rises 
another mountain, to be again split 
lengthwise in its turn. In this case we 
represent the anticlinal as rising slowly, 
just as before we represented the syn¬ 
clinal as slowly sinking. The ridges on 
each side of a split anticlinal are called 
monoclinal , and are in fact the same as 
the ridges into which a parted synclinal 
mountain divides itself. Hence the 
forms are common to both. Much is here committed to the 
genius of the reader to study out and comprehend. But much 
can be learned by a careful study of the map of eastern Penn¬ 
sylvania accompanying this Guide, where one may see the 
waved, zigzag, en-eclielon outcrops of the great sand-rocks of the 
Palaeozoic system sweeping round from the Hudson, in a series 
of groups to the Potomac; while to the southeast in a more 
irregular, intermitted belt, the primaries rise from beneath and 
separate them from the flat tertiary country of the sea-board. 

The first great sand-rock of the Palaeozoic system is the 
Potsdam sandstone. It spreads into Canada, crosses at the Saut 
Ste. Marie, and appears under the coal and limestone rocks of 
Iowa, It covers the northwest side of the Green mountains, the 






















BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


525 


highlands, the Easton, Heading and Conewago hills in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, and the Blue Kidge of the South (No. I.) 

Over it are the vast limestone regions of the great Virginia 
valley, known as the Winchester, Cumberland, Lebanon, or 
Newburg valley further north—the central avenue and highway 
of agricultural wealth along the Atlantic mountain border. 
These are the Trenton and Black river limestones of New York, 
the limestones of Canada and Wisconsin, and the low limestones 
on the Mississippi. (No. II.) 

Above these lie the Hudson river slates, the slates which form 
the northwestern half of the great valley just described, and 
reappear in many parts of the west. (No. III.) 

This, which is the Lower Silurian system of the English, and 
made up of the first sand-rock, the first limestone and the first 
slate of the Paloeozoic era, is characterized by peculiar metals 
and fossils, by lead and zinc, trilobites, and graptolites, and 
underlies the United States as a whole; is everywhere the floor; 
is sometimes, as in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, three or 
four miles deep beneath the surface. 

The second great sand-rock of the four, and the first that 
shows itself in an independent mountain form is the Medina 
sandstone. It is a vast precipitate of sand and pebble, the pro¬ 
duct of some ancient gulf stream or equatorial current, sweep¬ 
ing along the shores of then existing continents. Thin through 
New York, a mere knife edge of an outcrop along the Mohawk 
Valley, and scarcely apparent in the west, it begins to thicken 
as its eastern edge sweeps southward round the Catskill, and 
rises grandly into the air as the huge Shawangunk mountain of 
New Jersey, the Blue mountain of the Delaware Water Gap, 
the Kittatinny of Pennsylvania and the North mountain of Vir¬ 
ginia. In all this eastern outcrop, where it rises steeply out of 
the ground, its edge is nearly two thousand feet thick, one 
gigantic triple plate of stone, and therefore forming a mountain 
line fifteen hundred feet high, cleft at intervals by gaps through 
which the waters of the inner country break out issuing to the 
coast. Further south it is thinner, but still forms formidable 
barriers, like the Peak mountain, the Clinch, the Walker 
mountain in Virginia and Tennessee. How it underlies the 
Western States, how rapidly it thins away and where its west¬ 
ern knife edge lies, whether beneath Ohio and Kentucky or 


52G 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


beneath Illinois and Missouri, we can only guess by studying 
it through central Pennsylvania as it rises 1 ke a stricken whale 
again and again, as if to breathe, before it makes under the 
name of the Bald Eagle its last plunge beneath the Alleghany 
mountains, after which it is no more seen until it comes to 
the surface on the back of the Cincinnati axis.* All these 
sand-rocks thin rapidly westward, and not only grow thinner, 
but finer in their materials, less pebbly and more muddy as 
if we were getting off from the original shore and far into 
the original sea. But this second or “ Levant” sandstone, as 
Rogers calls it, suffers another and characteristic alteration; 
its triple structure grows upon it; its two distinct and now 
thinner plates of massive flint being separated by a middle plate 
of several hundred feet of softer sandy shales and iron ore, form 
a double crested mountain or a mountain with a terrace on one 
side; a feature which distinguishes the mountains of this second 
sandstone from all others. Lead a geologist blindfold into the 
Kisliicoquillas valley or into Morrison’s Cove, and the moment 
his eyes are opened and his glances fall upon those magical ter¬ 
races which Taylor, and others of the olden school, accepted as 
evidences of 'former inland lakes, he knows where he is in the 
order of the rocks, both how near the floor, and how near the 
coal. One glance at the inverted ship-keel knobs is sufficient. 

I have said that Mr. Rogers calls this sandstone formation Le¬ 
vant. It follows his Matinal Limestone and Matinal Slates, and 
marks the sunrise of his Palaeozoic day, the opening of the Up¬ 
per Silurian era in American geology. But in the earlier no¬ 
menclature adopted in the Pennsylvania and Virginia surveys it 
was called No. IV, and is always so spoken of in common con¬ 
versation by the members and students of those surveys. 
“ Mountains of IV ” are very numerous, being reiterated outcrops 
or reappearances and disappearances of the Medina sandstone as 
it rises and sinks in the Appalachian waves. Montour’s Ridge, 
in the forks of the Susquehanna, is the back ol such a wave, dy¬ 
ing at both ends. The mountains of Union co inty, the Buffalo, 
White Deer, Deer Hole, Bald Eagle, Jacks, and Seven Moun¬ 
tains are all mountains of IV between the Susquehannah and 
the Juniata. These run on southward into Virginia as Tussev and 

* The Louisville artesian well at a depth of 1596 feet strikes what may be the top of 
this rock 485 feet thick.— Sill. Jour. March , 1859. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


527 


Brush mountains. Between them and the eastern outcrops, or 
the great North mountain, which keeps on by itself into the 
south, are many separate canoe-sliaped mountains like the Shade, 
the Black Log, Cove mountain, and the rest. Those of one 
group run into each other in curious zigzags, doubling like hares 
across a thousand streams, always hearing on their backs the red 
sandstone and red shale, with certain marls, and the rich fossili- 
ferous iron ore (No. Y) described in Chapter III, from which 
many of our best northern furnaces obtain their stock. 

In the valleys which encircle these anticlinal mountains of No. 
IY and spread out into broad, well watered farming regions, full 
of hamlets, and traversed by large streams, crop out the rest of 
the Upper Silurian, and the first or lowest of the Devonian rocks 
•—the Clinton, Niagara, and Hamilton groups of the New York 
geologists, the Meridial and Post-meridial rocks of Bogers’s no¬ 
menclature, the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth of the ori¬ 
ginal scale, a world of thin limestones, cement layers, black 
slates (with the carbonate iron ores of central Pennsylvania, cen¬ 
tral Kentucky and perhaps western Tennessee), coarse ragged 
flintstone, many colored clays, and olive argillaceous sands, thou¬ 
sands of feet in thickness, passing on upwards into red sandy 
shales and deep red sandstones ushering in our next and third 
division. It would require a volume to describe these various 
formations, making up four-fifths of all the valleys of the middle 
mountain region from New York to Alabama, spreading as lime¬ 
stones over all the surface of the west not covered by the coal, 
and constituting the west and southern half of New York, the 
west of Ohio and the larger portions of the other neighboring 
States. The Niagara river at the Falls plunges over the rocks 
of the lower part of this great group. Lake Erie and Lake Mi¬ 
chigan are merely shallow valleys hollowed out in the middle 
rocks of this group and permanently submerged. The New 
York lakes are transverse valleys cut out of No. YIII. It is 
hardly to be disputed any longer that these are the principal 
rocks of middle New England, finding their lower level again 
beyond the Hudson, and descending beneath the coal of Kliode 
Island and Nova Scotia, but so changed that almost every re¬ 
cognizable feature is obliterated. In the interior however they 
are never to be mistaken, either by their relative arrangements, 
their characteristic aspects, or their wide-spread tossil shells, 


528 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


which are the very same on the Delaware and Schuylkill as on 
the Houston and the Clinch. 

It must not be omitted here, for this is its place, that there 
runs through these wide valleys a subordinate range of hills, the 
outcrop more or less distinguished of a peculiar but subordinate 
sand-rock called the Oriskany Sandstone Ho. VH, full of fossils, 
which when once seen can never be mistaken. Its origin w T as 
littoral or along a shallow shore, as Prof. Hall has lately shown 
by its groups of worn fossils. Its topographical exhibitions 
are extraordinary. The Pulpit Rocks of the Juniata are frag¬ 
ments of its horizontal layers. The 
rock is remarkable in many ways. It 
may be said never to vary its charac¬ 
ter, always a hard rugged cellular 
iron-stained chert. It is the point or 
plane of origination for a total change 
of life, one of the most striking of the 
phenomena of geology. A new crea¬ 
tion begins here. It underlies a black 
slate deposit, an earlier attempt at making coal, and thus resem¬ 
bles the fourth or highest sand-rock, the base of the coal mea¬ 
sures. Here in Ho. VII likewise we see a deposit of silex, thin, 
but of marvellous lateral extent, preceding a thin but equally 




Specimens of the Juniata pulpit rocks of VII. 


extensive and consistent deposit of carbon in clay. On the 
shore hills of Lake Erie this deposit of black slate actually con¬ 
tains a thin coal bed too thin to work indeed, and interrupted, 













BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


529 


but no wise distinguishable from the coal beds which long after 
in the lapse of ages followed it. Such also is the case in western 
Kentucky. In the upper valley of the Delaware and Schuylkill 
near Stroudsburg and Orwigsburg and in many other places, 



Specimens of the Juniata pulpit rocks of VII. 


men have spent years, long lives in fact, and fortunes in digging 
vainly into this black slate for coal. 

The Third Great Sandstone palaeozoic formation No. X, 
inaugurates a new system of grouped mountains along its fre¬ 
quent outcroppings, which keep themselves always and every¬ 
where apart from the groups of No. IY, never approaching 
them within three miles, and usually running in parallel lines 
with them at a variable distance of from ten to twenty miles, 
the interval being always filled up with the narrow knobs of the 
Oriskany, No. VII, and the broad, high, undulating, deeply ra- 
vined, and always cultivated hills of No. VIII. On the out or 
lower side of all these mountains of X runs an uneven terrace of 
the red sand of IX; and in those regions where the rocks stand 
vertical, this terrace rises to a separate summit, of equal height 
with the true summit and beautifully parallel with it; a narrow 
shallow crease divides the double summit, and then the long 
straight mountain with twin crests of wonderful evenness, but 
with this difference, that the outside one is red, and the inside 
one is white, runs along the map like the double beading of a 
picture frame. This is true of all that southeastern outcrop 
which encircles the anthracite coal basins, folding scrupulously 

• 34 

















530 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


in and out around their long sharp points, crossing and recross* 
ing the rivers and creeks, and presenting always outwardly or 
from' the coal, its terraces of Old Red Sandstone. The same 
red and white frame is repeated around the Broad Top Coal Ba¬ 
sin south of the Juniata. The Terrace mountain is its northern 
point, and western side, and Sidelong hill its eastern. ,The 
same surrounds the Cumberland coal region. This is the forma¬ 
tion which constitutes so many of the long straight parallel 
ridges of central and southern Virginia, and the upper cliffs of 
the Catskill, Alleghany, and Cumberland mountains. Like the 
Medina sandstone last described, it is of immense thickness in 
the east and thins rapidly towards the west. Its Atlantic out¬ 
crop is over two thousand feet thick, hard and white, while its 
supporting red rocks, No. IX, are at least a mile in thickness ; 
only the upper part of this red mass however forms the terrace 
or supplementary crest, except where they all lie nearly hori¬ 
zontal. This is the case at the Catskills. Here the pile ascends 
in steps three thousand feet, IX upon VIII, and X upon IX, and, 
on the top of all, the lower layers of XI. But as we follow this 
easternmost outcrop south through Virginia and Tennessee it 
slowly thins as if the original direction of the sediment was from 
the north and east. Yet more striking is the case when we step 
over to its inner outcrops. Around the Broad Top, and where 
it passes down beneath the Alleghany and the Great Savage it 
is still a mountain mass, but it rises again in Ohio and northern 
Pennsylvania from its underground journey so lean and changed 
as scarcely to be recognized. It is there a formation of greenish 
sandstone less than two hundred feet thick. The whole inter¬ 
mediate space, of course, it underlies ; that is, all northern and 
western Pennsylvania, all western Virginia and the whole 
southern region of the Cumberland mountain ; here it is as thin 
as in the Catskill region, but here as there helps to pile up the 
immense plateau, which narrowing as we go southward domi¬ 
neers with its lofty terminal crags the plains of Alabama. 

Between this Third or Vespertine White Sandstone and the 
Fourth next to be described, lies but a single formation, the 
Vespertine Bed Shales of No. XI. This softest of rocks—a pure 
red mud, once the mere ooze of the gently sloping shore of the 
quietest of seas, on the ridged wind-wave surfaces of which the 
rain showers of that ancient day have left their innumerable 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


531 


pits, and the footsteps of unknown lacertian or batracliian tide- 
haunters are still plainly to be seen—forms a deep valley drained 
by a succession of short, straight, branchless creeks, which 
alternately run their red waters opposite ways from high and 
narrow sheds into the larger streams just where these are cutting 
through the gaps. One might travel along the string of valleys 
between these two mountains, as between two of the concentric 
walls of ancient Pasagarda, round and round the coal basins, 
without ever seeing a sign of civilization except some clearing 
where advantage has been taken of the rock-riffles in a gap to 
make a dam and build a saw-mill. There are but four places in 
Pennsylvania where this sharp straight catalogue of vales belies 
its nature and widens out into a plain of cultivation; namely, in 
the Locust valley, behind Tamaqua; in the Catawissa valley, 
still further north; in Pine Creek valley, west of the Broad 
mountain; and in Trough Creek valley, within the Terrace 
mountain, south of Huntingdon. Each of them is produced in 
the same way, that is, by a system of small parallel waves 
spreading out the rocks into a level floor. This red shale forma¬ 
tion is three thousand feet thick at the Lehigh, Schuylkill, and 
Susquehanna rivers, and one thousand feet thick at the Hew 
river in southern Virginia. But it rapidly diminishes across 
the measures as we approach the Alleghany mountains. At 
Broad Top it is less than one thousand feet thick; at the Alle¬ 
ghany mountain it is scarcely two hundred, at Blairsville it is 
thirty feet, and in the Beaver river, lost entirely to view. It 
was peculiarly a shore deposit, rapidly suppressed as it advanced 
towards the deep sea, into the distant recesses of which only its 
finest white impalpable particles of fuller’s earth were floated, 
mixed with carbonate of iron. It is, however, not to be regarded 
as a simple formation, for throughout its whole northern outcrop 
through Upper Pennsylvania, at Towanda, Blossburg, Ralston, 
Lockhaven, and the Portage Summit, it is a double or triple 
layer of red shale; and these layers are separated from each 
other, from fifty to two hundred feet, by greenish sandstones. 
It is an important key to the coal. Two principal events accom¬ 
panied the deposit of this formation, which closing the Devonian 
era may be considered as the uppermost third member of the 
European Old Red sandstone, viz.: the embedment of the false 
coal measures, and the precipitation of the Ralston ore; the first 


532 


PART ir.-DIVISION II. 


event opened, the latter closed its era. Of the former, the 
author has said what he knew at the time in his Manual of Coal 7 
in 1856 and much more might now he said, but this is not the 
place. The Ralston or No. NI ore will find its place in the 
Fourth Chapter upon Carbonate ores. 

The Fourth Sand-rock is the well-known No. Nil or Great 
Conglomerate. It has its representative in the Millstone Grit 
beneath the European coal. It is the floor of the true coal 
measures, an immense preparatory outspread of sand and pebble¬ 
stones of every variety, but chiefly pure white quartz; and of 
every size, from the minute mustard seed and pepper corn to the 
hen’s egg, and in the Susquehanna region even the ostrich egg. 
The evidence of the rolled origin of these pebbles is of course 
overwhelming;—from their shape, that of river cobble and brook 
stones, and of the constituent parts of ocean current banks and 
diluvial terraces;—from their constitution, without nuclei, diver¬ 
sified in elements and color, and bearing none of the marks of 
segregation;—from their local relation to one another, and to the 
tree stems and fuci packed up with them in the block, evidently 
a heterogeneous mass;—from their law of distribution, which 
reproduces all the facts we are familiar with in oceanic shingle 
beds, thickening in one direction and thinning in another, the 
local size of the pebbles agreeing with the local size of the bed, 
and therefore with the local turbulence of the current which 
rolled them along the shallow bottom. Everything in fact assures 
us against the notion of the concretionary origin of these pebbles. 
Nor is there any sufficient reason for selecting the pure white 
quartz pebbles from the rest, as segregations, for in all other 
respects they resemble the rest as rolled stones. It is charac¬ 
teristic of certain beds of this conglomerate, and that over wide 
areas, that they offer to the eye a certain confluent structure, 
while others are equally characterized by the universally distinct 
isolation of their pebbles, each one accented, as it were, while 
the other variety badly pronounces its constituent parts. This is 
very distinctly to be observed, for instance, in the Broad Top 
coal region, the lower coal conglomerate of which is confluent, 
while the upper or Cook rock, both here and along the Alle¬ 
ghany mountain, is finely discriminate. 

It is certain that the origin of the conglomerate was oriental 


7 Lippincott and Co., Philadelphia. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORE8. 


533 


It must liave been produced along the shores of land which at 
the date of its deposit bounded the ocean, in which it was 
deposited, upon the east. It is of great thickness and very coarse 
towards the southeast, and grows thinner, finer, and more purely 
silicious the further it is traced northwestward. In the accom¬ 
panying woodcut (Fig. 19) it is seen consisting principally of 
one horizontal plate, fragments of which tessellate at intervals 
the summit of the Towanda mountain in northern Pennsylvania. 
This plate is fifteen feet thick, occasionally subdivided into two, 
and always under and overlaid by thinner plates, the whole 
measuring less than a hundred feet. At Pottsville, on the con¬ 
trary, the formation measures fourteen hundred feet. In middle 
Pennsylvania it varies from one to two hundred feet. We 
should say, at first sight, that the increase eastward was a local 
fact confined to the anthracite and semi-anthracite region. But 
in fact, what w T e call the Conglomerate Proper in that region is 
but one, and the lowermost, of several masses of sand and gravel 
thrown down at intervals upon each other, with coals and clays 
between; whereas the conglomerate of the west includes, per¬ 
haps, several of these masses, or what is left of them, each one 
having thinned out in that direction. At Pottsville, and through 
to Shamokin and Hazleton, there are four massive conglom¬ 
erates above the Conglomerate Proper, each one from forty to 
eighty feet thick, and several massive sand-rocks besides of 
equal thickness, over these again. In Broad Top and the Cum¬ 
berland region, these upper conglomerates and sand-rocks of 
u tlie coal measures” are also present, but all of them thin. 
Further west there is a certain declension, but its regularity or 
irregularity we have as yet no means of determining; that will 
be left as a legacy of research for the explorers of a future gene¬ 
ration. This much, however, is very certain, and should excite 
our admiration as one of those curious coincidences which may 
well bear the name of providence, and be received as evidences 
of the forethought of benevolence, that w T e are indebted to this 
enormous local eastward thickening of the Conglomerate Proper 
and the conglomerate and sandstone beds above it, for our 
anthracite treasures. Had the rocks beneath the anthracite 
coal been the merq thin sheets of sand which they are to the 
westward, weakened still further by intercalations of clay and 
coal, their outcrop edges never could have withstood the rush 


534 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


of denuding waters, and protected as they did the mineral fuel 
within their gigantic folds. What now are groups of long, 
slender, united, or closely parallel coal basins, would have been, 
but for this protection, wastes of red sandstone, or deep lakes in 
the olive shales of No. VIII, like those of the north. The com¬ 
paratively little coal that has been hardly left in these small 
basins would then have gone the way of all that vast original 
deposit, the debris of which lies buried under the profoundest 
bottoms of the Atlantic, together with the immensely greater 
ruin of the formations underlying and preceding it. This will 
perhaps be made plain by the following map with which we 



close this long but necessary digression from the subject-matter 
of the chapter, leaving the further description of the coal 
measures to which the Conglomerate belongs for the Chapter on 
the Carbonate ores. 


In Woodstock county New Brunswick an immense bed 
of brown hematite ore is described by Gesner in his 
Fourth Annual Report, 1842, near the main road through 
Jackson Town. It is a triple bed subdivided by slate con¬ 
taining narrow seams of carbonate of lime thus : Clay slate 
—ore 28 feet—slate 250—ore 15—slate 100—ore 27—clay 
slate; dip nearly vertical, strike north-northeast for at least 
half a mile. The ore is distinctly stratified, compact, reddish- 
brown, frequently fibrous, and as if it had been once imperfectly 
crystallized, easily reduced, containing peroxide iron 78, water 12, 
clay 6, and yielding 40 to 50 per cent iron. Its discovery was 

























































BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


535 


known in 1820 and claimed in 1B36. The . 

following letter contains matter of interest: ew runswic 

Bangor , Maine , Sept. 23 d, 1852. Mr. J. T Hodge : Dear Sir—I am this far 
on my return from the Woo.dstock New Brunswick Furnace, where I have been to 
assist in putting in repair and starting it. 

You are probably aware that the company who own it have been troubled to make 
any but white hard and brittle iron from their ores. Before commencing with it I 
carried a sample of the ore and pig metal to Dr. C. T Jackson of Boston and had it 
analyzed. Its constituent parts contained : 


Hard White Iron (two samples.) 

Metallic iron, A 83.276 B 85.254 

Metallic manganese, 15.500 14.410 

Silicium, .624 .336 

Carbon, .600 .364 


Ore. 

Water, 12.05 

Silica, 19.05 

Peroxide of iron, 43.00 
Alumina, 4.01 

Zinc, 4.02 

Oxide manganese, 17.05 

The iron is marked A and B. A was made with a hot furnace and B with a cold one, 
and the discrepancy in the product of .364 was owing to not separating the silex and 
carbon. Other samples of the ore and iron were analyzed by him before and found 
to contain more manganese than this—the ore 18.92 manganese, and the metafile 
iron 16.26. I am very certain that it is impossible to make any but white hard 
and brittle iron from the ore. I have used all the fluxes recommended by Mr. 
Mushet and other English Iron Masters , and can find no perceptible difference in 
the texture of the iron. Mr. Mushet recommended 12 to 18 hundred of limestone 
to the ton of metal produced. I tried it and even went as high as 28 hundred 
weight to the ton of metal and found no difference in the metal. The limestone 
would have cut the entire hearth away in a few days if we had continued it, from 
the appearance of what we did use. The ore needs no other flux besides what is con¬ 
tained in itself so far as I can discover. It makes a very liquid cinder and carries a 
bright tuyere put on what we may. I used 136 pounds decomposed primitive slate to 
400 pounds of the ore, and could see nothing of it at the tuyeres—35 pounds refrac¬ 
tory sandstone to 300 pounds ore had no effect upon it, except to come before the 
tuyeres in an unmelted state, and the ore consumed it there as readily as “ hot tal¬ 
low' 1 ' 1 would a ball of “ beeswax.''' 

In fact it is the most singular ore I ever saw. The furnace carries a great 
burden of it, but its yield is not great. From four days’ careful working and weigh¬ 
ing all the ore and iron accurately I find it to yield 34 T 3 ff Y per cent of iron and man¬ 
ganese combined. 

I send you some samples of curiously crystallized iron taken from a mass in the 
drain underneath the hearth. The last blast the iron cut through the bottom stone 
and run into the drain, from which I have broken these samples. It is a curiosity to 
me and supposing it may be to you, I send them. 

If you have not noticed this furnace in the Railroad Journal, and if you find any¬ 
thing in this letter that you wish to insert, you may do it. Correcting such errors in 
my awkward writing as you think necessary if you please. 

Yours truly, Jonas Tower. 

The metamorphism of the Lower Silurian formations so well 
proven in Pennsylvania and so obscure in New England, is well 


53G 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


made out in Canada. In tliat beautiful little resume of North 
American geology presented by Logan and Hunt to the Exposi¬ 
tion at Paris in 1853 we have the following: 8 

“ The rocks of the East Canada basin have been overturned, plicated and dislocat¬ 
ed into mountain chains which prolong the system of the Alleghanies, and sometimes 
attain the altitude of 4,500 feet; their rocks metamorphosed and crystallized by 
chemical action so that their fossils for the most part can no longer be recognized. 
These metamorphosed Hudson River (No. Ill) and Sillery rocks (a formation coming 
in between III and IY at the top of the Hudson river group) occupy a belt about 
45 miles wide for 750 miles along the northwest edge of the valley of the upper 
limestones. But as the belt of metamorphic influence did not correspond with the 
range of plications of the rocks, 9 these last as they advance northward come at 
length to escape from it and exhibit their sedimentary fossil character undisguised. 
We are thus permitted to see the remarkable change of sedimentary rocks into chlo¬ 
rite-, mica- or talc-schists, or into feldspar-, amphibol- and epidote- rocks. Among 
the former are interstratified beds of serpentine, already traced for 150 miles, in 
company with beds of lime, dolomite, magnesite, amphibole and diallage. These 
changes seem to be occasioned not by the introduction of any new minerals, but by 
the reactions and chemical combinations of the matters existing mechanically mixed 
in^the original sediments. The unchanged schists furnish on analysis 4 or 5 per 
cent of alkali, sufficient to constitute the feldspars and micas contained in the crys¬ 
talline schists; the dolomites and magnesites always contain much silica and often 
oxide of chrome, which under the form of chromic iron characterize the serpentines 
of this region. The sedimentary origin of the serpentine is very evident and was 
probably a reaction between the silica and the carbonate of magnesia in presence of 
water, aided by a temperature more or less elevated. Bischof has shown that silex, 
even in its insoluble form, decomposes the carbonates of lime, magnesia and iron 
even at 100° C=212° Fahrenheit. Very silicious magnesites would furnish hydrat¬ 
ed silicate of magnesia (serpentine) and dolomites, amphibole and diallage forms. 
Less silicious magnesites would give talcs and steatites, and less silicious dolomites 
the common mixed serpentine and lime. Some nacreous unctuous schists are not 
magnesian, but get their character from a micaceous mineral identical, at least in 
certain cases, with Guillemin’s pholerite , a hydrated silicate of alumina. Observe, 
most of the metamorphic rocks are hydrates—serpentine, talc, chlorite, pholerite, 
diallage. Among the anhydrated silicates are pyroxene, orthose, epidote, and more 
rarely garnet, sphene, tourmaline. 

“ Approaching the northeast region it is easy to observe the gradual fading of the 
chloritic or nacreous aspect of the schists, taking their sedimentary character. Be¬ 
yond the metamorphic but within the overturned limits, in the Sillery and Quebec 
rocks, many fissures are seen filled with a black, bituminous, fragile, sometimes mam¬ 
millary matter, losing in a strong heat 20 per cent volatile hydrocarbons, leaving a 
coal powder burning with difficulty and leaving in its turn some tenths of one per 
cent ash, perhaps the condensed bitumen of the palaeozoic rocks, volatilized by the 
previous commotions. In County Gaspe Upper Silurian unchanged contain frag 
ments of and lie upon Lower Silurian metamorphosed; but in the southwest these 
fossils show the beginning of a metamorphism for themselves ; in the valleys of the 
St. Francis and Lake Memphremagog the limestones become crystalline and micace- 

6 Esquisse g^ologique du Canada, etc-, chapter vii., freely translated. 

9 A fact which destroys Rogers’s theory of anticlinal metamorphism. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


537 


ous while their tipper Silurian and Devonian fossils can still be recog- Vermont, 
nized both on surface specimens and in thin sections of the rock. 

To the southeast these crystalline limes are covered by mica schists more or less cal¬ 
careous with macled schists, quartzites and garnet hornblendes all speaking ot 
paleozoic metamorphism and penetrated by granites of a Devonian age. So that 
the metamorphic action and the undulating forces have been evidently prolonged to 
the very close of the palaeozoic era. 

“ The crystalline rocks just described contain metallic veins which traverse both 
Lower and Upper Silurian rocks. One very ferruginous series of Hudson river 
schists give place in Cantons Bolton and Brome to beds of magnetic and specular ore, 
disseminated in crystals, or oftener in little grains and pellets, in chlorite-slate with 
dolomite ; beds from 2 to 6 yards wide of from 20 to 50 per cent ore, often contain 
minute quantities of titanic acid, which appears also crystallized as sphene in a cross 
vein in one of these iron ore beds, and in another as crystals of rutile and specular 
iron. Titanium has already been detected in the non-metamorphosed ferruginous 
shales. These iron ores are very abundant but not to be compared for importance 
with the Laurentian beds. They occur in many other localities. One remarkable 
bed of magnetic titaniferous ore is at Vaudreuil in la Beance, 17 yards wide in ser¬ 
pentine, granular, separable by the magnet, the pure magnetic part two-thirds of the 
mass, the other third ihnenite giving 48.60 titanic acid. The serpentines show dis¬ 
seminated chromic iron; one bed in Bolton 12 inches and one in Ham 14 inches 
thick, containing 46 to 50 per cent oxide chrome. It is also disseminated through 
the dolomites and magnesites. The minerals of copper occur in veins generally 
concordant with the strike and dip of the metamorphic rocks, and associated with 
Quebec dolomites. 1 At Leeds a ferruginous dolomite contains sulphuret of copper 
and specular iron ore.” 

No preparation could be better for a Cornwall mine or a War¬ 
wick mine in Pennsylvania; and these points are not omitted 
here, because they bear directly upon the theory of the origin 
of the brown hematites in the Silurian formations. Is it not 
strange that these Silurian crystalline ores of Canada should 
give place to the long range of Silurian brown hematites of New 
. England, and these in turn to the similar crystalline ores of 
New Jersey, unless they are concordant deposits changed by 
local agencies ? 

In Vermont, the brown hematite mines follow the west foot 
of the Green mountains, in their proper place on the outcrop edge 
of the Lower Silurian limestone, here called by Dr. Emmons the 
Laconic. They are described in Mr. Adams’ annual reports in 
an order from south to north, an order reversed in the following 
pages. The eastern shore of Lake Champlain is bounded by the 
Calciferous sandstone (Lower Silurian I, II), above which (to the 
east and dipping eastward under the Green mountain synclinal) 

1 Compare the Cornwall and Warwick copper in Pennsylvania. 



53S 


PAliT II.— DIVISION II. 


is a belt of Hudson river slates (III) running tlie whole length 
of tlie State. East of this is a similar belt of magnesian slates 
(upper of III) east of which is the range of Upper Silurian sand¬ 
stone (IY) called the Green mountain gneiss with coarse mica 
slate. East of this and running down the middle and like the 
rest the whole length of the State is a belt of talc slate; all east 
of which to the Connecticut river is an outspread of calcareo- 
mica slates. Were it not for the thoroughly metamorphic 
character of these rocks and the almost entire absence of legible 
fossils, and judging simply from tlie topographical expression 
of the surface, we would say that these are the representatives 
of the Upper Silurians (Y, YI) still descending eastward, to 
pass under the great Devonian White mountains of Hew Hamp¬ 
shire, which are undoubtedly repeatedly synclinal, and wear all 
the features of a region of Portage, Chemung and Catskill 
(YIII, IX, X) rocks. This hypothetical view is curiously sup¬ 
ported by the Bernardston fossils found at the extreme southeast 
corner of Yermont and which, although obscure and not yet 
studied out, look more like a group above the Helderberg lime¬ 
stone (YI) than like anything else. The principal objection to 
this view is the purely synclinal structure of the Green mountain 
plateau across Haverhill and Cummington in Massachusetts, 
which would naturally bring up the Hudson river formations in 
tlie valley of the Connecticut. This we know not to be the 
case, from the absence of any great limestone belt and the 
presence of coal measures in middle Hew England. Looking 
broadly over this interesting country no experienced topo¬ 
graphical geologist can resist the conviction that the Lower 
Silurian belts in its western border go down under its middle 
region only to reappear in such spots as the granite quarries of 
Boston and Quincy, and along the shores of Maine,—even if it be 
necessary in order to make out the details of the plan to imagine 
faults along the western escarpment of the Connecticut valley. 
But if this plan in a rude sketch be true, then the eastern side 
of the Green mountains ought to show the Upper Silurian fossil 
ore of Y in a line of exposures coextensive with the range; 
whereas we have but a few brown hematite beds in Plymouth, 
Sherburne etc. to show for it. The whole subject is as dark as 
any ever yet discussed by geologists. 

In Highgate, Franklin county, and in Milton and Colchester, 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


539 


Chittenden county, along the lake shore, a few y ermon .j. 

beds of oehreons brown hematite have been found. 

This is the belt of the calciferous sandrock. 

In Moncton, Bristol, Huntingdon and Salisbury, Addison 
county, similar deposits have been found, of which that at the 
north end of Bristol, between Hew Haven and Moncton, was 
formerly worked to a considerable extent. It underlies the 
universal drift and # also a soft, moist, friable, iron-stained, cal¬ 
careous clay rock “ much resembling the limestone so frequently 
found with brown ore,” and occurs between ridges of a peculiar 
greyish blue vitreous translucent quartz rock, which extends 
northerly into Moncton. The ore is much injured by manga¬ 
nese. A mile north of it, in Moncton, is an extensive old ore- 
digging under gravel (perhaps worth draining and opening 
anew) and the nearest rock is the quartz above mentioned. 
Half a mile west is another deposit. Another probably exists 
near the north end of Lake Dunmore in Salisbury.—All these 
localities are in the belt of the Hudson river slates. 

The Brandon deposit in Rutland county belonging in 1845 
to C. W. Conant, is said by Mr. Adams to be at a depth of 80 or 
90 feet “ quite free from admixture witli the overlying drift, 
although mingled witli yellow ochre and some of it finely com¬ 
minuted. Large nodules are very common whose cavity is 
completely filled with water. 8 They have also been observed in 
the Chittenden deposits to be spoken of next. The Conant 
furnace in the village of Brandon uses this ore. The locality is 
one of great geological interest. With the iron ore is deposited 
oxide of manganese, kaolin or porcelain clay, and lignite brown 
coal containing multitudes of fossil fruit, figured and described 
by Prof. Hitchcock in Silliman’s Journal , Jan. 7, 1853, and 
supposed by him and other distinguished geologists, to demon¬ 
strate the tertiary age of all the brown hematite beds referred to 
in these pages, and found distributed along a narrow belt of 
limestone country from Canada to Alabama. But this subject 
has been sufficiently discussed on pages 514, 515, 516 and 
517 above. The company which works this ore bed and runs 
the furnace, was incorporated in 1851 with an ultimate capital 
of $150,000. It manufactures car-wheels, fire-brick, paints and 


2 This goes to show that the original form of the bed was that of carbonate of iron. 


540 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


paper clay in Brandon. It lias also a foundry and machine shop 
in Rutland, 300 yards from the railroad station. 

The appendix to Thompson’s Vermont says: “In the area 
above mentioned there have been sunk, principally for obtain¬ 
ing the iron ore, five shafts to depths varying from 100 to 130 
feet. From these shafts, at depths of 80 or 90 feet, drifts have 
been sent off in various directions—by which the iron clay and 
coal have been passed through in various directions, and some¬ 
thing has been learned respecting their relative position and 
extent. . . . The brown coal shows itself at the surface, and to 
the depth of 90 feet. It seems to descend obliquely by the 
sides of the kaolin in a columnar form about 20 feet wide and 
14 thick.” Prof. Hitchcock thinks it cannot have this form, but 
that of an oblique plate cut off by a fault. The report for 1853 
of the agent, Jno. Ilowe, jr. Esq. says: “The operations have 
been mainly confined to a level 80 feet from the surface. . . . 
There have been raised during the year 3,984 tons of ore at a 
cost of $113J per ton; . . 619 tons have been washed, at a cost 
of 37-J cents per ton for the washed ore. In addition to the 
saving of freight to the furnace on the washed ore—which 
amounts to at least half the expense of teaming at 28 cents per 
ton—we save large quantities of beautifully washed ochre and 
fine washings of ore;—from 12 to 15 shades of color—very 
durable, mixing easily with oil and flowing freely from the 
brush. The demand for manganese still continues limited. The 
furnace blew in 17th May, 1852. . . . The total amount of iron 
made in the two blasts of 121 days was 752 net tons, at a cost 
of $19 64J per ton.” In his report of 1854, he says: “ The 
lignite continues to be abundant and has been constantly used 
as a fuel in running the steam-engine.” The black ore in the 
vicinity of the manganese bed we find very valuable to mix 
with the hematite, for the purpose of making the iron harder, 
and imparting to it stronger chilling properties. Raised 4,343 
tons at a cost of $1 33-J per ton; repairs, etc, increase the cost to 
$1 53J-. We have used the manganese to mix with our ore. 3 

In Pittsford, next south of Brandon, Rutland county, Gran¬ 
ger’s furnace (1845) already mentioned, stands on an extensive 
bed of brown hematite discovered in digging its foundations, 


8 Bulletin Amer. Iron Assoc, p. 77, 1857. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


541 


beneath the drift gravel, in yellow ochre, with 
white clay, on limestone (Lower Silurian No. II). ermon 
Furnace river exposes it. “Mr. Granger considers the prox¬ 
imity of limestone indispensable to success in discovering ore 
beds.” The dip of the limestone in the southwest side of a 
hill 60 rods to the northeast looks like 50°-60° east, and here 
large quantities of ore were got, under the drift. Lumps are 
common near limestone 2 miles south. Brown ore and man¬ 
ganese were formerly worked beneath the drift on the river 
side 2 miles northeast, towards Crittenden. 3 The beautiful 
Pittston furnace 3 miles east of the railroad station enlarged 
in 1853, digs its ore on both sides of the stream, close by and 
also in Chittenden 2\ miles north of it, and mixes sometimes 
with it Lake Champlain magnetic ore. 4 

The Chittenden deposit in the same county, Rutland, east of 
Brandon and in the belt of talc slates alternating with quartz 
rocks (III, IY), three miles northeast of Granger’s Furnace, not 
far from the west line of the town, was called in 1845 Mitchell’s 
shaft, 60 feet deep, through clay ochres, white clay, manganese 
and brown hematite. Galleries a hundred feet long had been 
carried north and south, east and west, the north gallery strik¬ 
ing a ferruginous limestone rock dipping 35° east and contain¬ 
ing a large irregular vein of common quartz, and on it lie con¬ 
formably clay ochres, white clay, fragments of iron ore and 
manganese and occasionally silicious sand. The south gallery 
cuts these, occasionally touching the hard rock and ending 
against a solid bed of ore,* from 2 to 4 yards thick, reposing on the 
limestone rock and underneath the ochreous strata above mention¬ 
ed ; an inch layer of yellow ochre parts the ore and rock. This is 
the hrst instance of the kind found in the long range of diggings 
from Bennington to the northeast part of Addison. Another 
shaft (Harrison’s) strikes the same bed 80 feet further south and 
furnislied in 1845 an abundance of pure rich ore. Much of the 
old disseminated ore was spoiled with manganese. 6 Granger’s fur¬ 
nace made 40 to 45 per cent of iron out of the good ore. In 
1845 it mixed New York magnetic ore but without perceptible 

3 -Adams’ report. 4 Bulletin Amer. Iron Assoc. 1857. 

6 Analysis—Peroxide iron 84.90, water 13.88, silica 0.75, alumina 0.47=metallic iron 
58.66. 

• The working of manganese was abandoned in 1844. Large quantities were obtained 
in the galleries and picked by hand from the crushed and washed ore. 


542 


PART II.—DIVISION H. 


advantage. The slag was stamped, washed and resmelted. 
Larned’s forge on Furnace river also at one time mixed mag¬ 
netic, but abandoned it for the pure ore which made excellent 
iron. 

A “ vein” of manganese, nearly 2 yards wide runs through 
a very loose arenaceous quartz rock, 80 rods northeast of the 
Mitchell ore-bed, associated with an impure silicious brown iron 
ore. 7 This also was in 1845 the only known instance of a vein 
or solid bed of manganese ; at all other places it lies disseminat¬ 
ed through iron ore, etc. One thing is therefore certain, that 
most of the surface deposits of brown manganesian iron ore beds 
are the mingled debris and decomposition of local veins or solid 
beds of the metals, originally thrown down not absolutely but 
yet so nearly together that their outcrops are near enough to 
allow of this subsequent chemico-mechanical intermixture. The 
rock in the immediate vicinity of the Mitchell mine is a calcife- 
rous sand-rock, and when the calc part is dissolved and washed 
off the sand with much of its manganese remains, while the 
white alumina or clay settles into pools with the iron ochres. 

In Wallingford, two townships south of Brandon and higher 
up the Otter river valley, in the same belt of rocks, half a mile 
east of the South Village and Otter creek is a valuable bed of 
ore under a surface strewn with boulders of granular quartz 
(hardheads). The adit was carried through drift gravel 100 feet; 
sandy ferruginous limestone rock (dipping 60° east) another 100 
feet; and then red and yellow ochres and white clay conformably 
interstratified and overlying the limestone 250 feet, to a bed of 
manganese and iron ore fragments, making very white, hard 
iron. This “ black ore” yielded to Mr. Olmsted’s analysis per¬ 
oxide iron 71.30, peroxide manganese 12.93, water 12.50, silica 
3.00, and a trace of alumina=metallic iron 49.34 ; and iron to 
manganese as 84J- to 15^, but this is no uniform proportion. 
The resulting pig metal analyzed as metallic iron 88.71, metallic 
manganese 11.28. 

In North Dorset, where the belt enters Bennington county 
is a remarkable vein of disintegrated ochreous ore with a thin 
streak of solid ore through the middle, standing nearly perpen¬ 
dicular, running south 30° east, 3 feet wide, along through an 


7 Analysis—Peroxide iron 37.81, water 6.38, silica 55.81, and a trace of alumina. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


543 


argillaceous slightly ferruginous limestone ridge, Vermont 
which itself runs parallel to and at the foot of the 
Green mountain, and the strata of which dip only 12° east [in 
under the Green mountains]. Mr. Curtis opened the vein at the 
north end of the hill a few rods east of his furnace and followed 
it in, 150 feet, where it was 100 feet beneath the crest of the hill; 
he has detected it also half a mile further south. The whole 
vein is decomposed to ochre with the exception of the central 
streak of solid ore, and Mr. Adams admired it as the only true 
vein he knew of in this limestone formation, and suspected that 
it had been a vein of red specular oxide. The fact probably is 
that the central plate of solid ore instead of being a relic, is an 
incipient crystallization of the solid vein; and as the limestone 
is divided up into rhomboids by two systems of joints with the 
bed-planes, this perhaps has been a profound shrinkage fis¬ 
sure filled with hydrated peroxide of iron by drainage waters. 
The Dorset furnace is supplied, when it works, with ore from 
the East Dorset ore beds, 3 miles further south, where the ore 
is ochreous and fine and associated with white clay, and 3 tons 
make a ton of iron. 

In Bennington, near the southwest corner of Yermont and in 
the northeast corner of the town, on the same limestone belt, a 
new ore bed was found in 1845 in addition to those near the fur¬ 
nace. The furnace bed is described by Professor Dewey as some 
rods wide and only separated by a thin partition of clay, often 
not half an inch thick, from a bed of manganese. 8 Here 
is said to have occurred the following curious experience in 
iron smelting. About 1820, when Mr. Trenner worked the 
furnace, thinking that the magnesian ore was purer iron ore, he 
charged the furnace with it. At the first run however the 
whole casting house was in a blaze and the furnace had to be 
extensively cleared out. Mr. Adams gives the correct explana¬ 
tion by referring to the common experiment of obtaining a jar 
full of oxygen gas by heating the black oxide of manganese and 
then plunging a red-hot wire into it, the iron will burn with 
great fury. 

8 However absurd such a description seems to be under any of the accepted wash 
theories, it is strikingly illustrative of the decomposition of two sub- and super-incum¬ 
bent massive strata of rocks one of which was originally highly calco-ferruginous and 
the other as highly calco-manganesian. 


544 


PAKT II.-DIVISION II. 


In Massachusetts, in tlie northeast corner of Bernardston 
running into the southeast corner of Yermont, is a series of rocks 
affording slate for roofing, probably Hudson river Ho. Ill, and 
on them (whether conformably or not the false cleavage of the 
slates makes it hard to tell, but probably non-conformably) lie 
nearly level layers of fossiliferous limestone and a bed of iron 
ore two or three feet thick. The fossils are imperfect but numer¬ 
ous and look like an Upper Helderberg or Lower Devonian 
group. If so this ore will correspond with the ore of middle 
Kentucky, and of Perry and Juniata counties in middle Penn¬ 
sylvania. 

Taking ivp the Lower Silurian limestone belt where it enters 
from Yermont the northwest corner of Massachusetts, pass¬ 
ing down into the northwest corner of Connecticut and spread¬ 
ing over a strip of eastern Hew York next the Hew England 
line, we find many valuable beds of brown hematite feed¬ 
ing furnaces which make the celebrated “ Salisbury brand” 
iron, in Lenox, Biclimond, West Stockbridge, and Salisbury 
Connecticut. Hone of these beds are described by the Massa¬ 
chusetts State Survey, but resemble those of Yermont. As in 
the beds at Bennington, Yermont, manganese abounds, so it is a 
constant constituent in all these more southern ores ; with the 
ochres of iron, solid brown hematite, some red oxide and argil¬ 
laceous oxide. 

The Horth Adams furnace (B 8) on Iloosic river mixes Ad¬ 
ams, Lanesboro’, Richmond and Amenia ore. The first is 2$ 
miles southwest, the second 14 south of the middle of the town. 
Cheshire furnace (B 9) has its own banks of 50 per cent ore 
within half a mile east and west of it. Briggs’s furnace (B 10) 
in Lanesboro’ village uses Lanesboro’ ore 3J miles west of it. 
Hodge calls this Lanesboro’ furnace. Lenox furnace (B 11) gets 
its own 32 per cent ore from 4 miles west, but some 60 per cent 
from the West Stockbridge mines, which feed also the Hudson 
Anthracite furnaces A 11, 12. The Stockbridge furnaces, one 
anthracite, (A 3 and B 12) get ore from the West Stockbridge and 
Richmond banks 6 miles west. Richmond furnace (B 13) has 
its own banks and owns the West Stockbridge banks also. Yan- 
deusenville furnace (B 14) uses Richmond ore 10 miles north, 
and West Stockbridge miles north. The Berkshire anthra- 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


545 


cite furnaces (A 1, 2) uses Richmond ore, Sha- 

ker ore from the Shaker depot on the Western asoac usetts. 

railroad, hut chiefly West Pittsfield ore, all from five to seven 
miles north of the stacks. From some of these deposits, says Mr. 
Silas Burt, 9 over 100,000 tons of washed ore have been taken out 
without showing any signs of exhaustion. Dr. Hitchcock how¬ 
ever spoke in 1833 of the Bennington deposits as nearly ex¬ 
hausted. 


In Connecticut —Beekley, Forbes and Buena Vista furnaces 
(B 15, 16, 18) mix Salisbury, Oldhill and Davis ores. Scovill 
furnace (B 17) in South Canaan uses Davis ore 8 miles west, 
Oldhill, and its own bank 10 miles west. Cornwall furnace 
(B 19) uses Amenia ore 12 miles west with Salisbury ore 10 
miles northwest and roasted it at one time by turning its spare 
gas through the stacks in the yard. Mount Riga furnace (B 20) 
uses Oldhill ore 1miles southeast of Dagon’s furnace ; this is a 
huge open quarry across which a high bridge carries the main 
Millerton-Hartford road ; also Davis ore 1-J miles east of Oldhill 
diggings near Lakeville or Furnace village; also Dagon’s ore. 
Ohapinville furnace (B 23) uses Oldhill ore. So does Limerock 
(B 24), a very old iron site, where bloomaries worked up Oldhill 
ore 120 years ago. This ore fed also the old furnace at the Falls 
village, now torn down, and the still older Lakeville furnace, 
also demolished, which made shot and shell for the Britisli 
troops in revolutionary times. Weed’s furnace (B 25) uses Salis¬ 
bury, Amenia and Palmer ore, the last 500 yards west of Ame¬ 
nia station in Hew York, and also from Adams’s and Gridley’s 
ore banks close together. Kent furnace (B 27) has its mines 6 
miles southeast and sometimes uses Kent and Amenia ore. Ma¬ 
cedonia furnace (B 28) in Kent, uses Amenia ore, 10 or 12 miles 
west by road, but only 8 direct. Sharon station anthracite fur¬ 
nace (A 4) uses the Megat ore, with some from the Amenia 
bank, three miles to the north, and some from the Salisbury 
banks to the northeast. The Megat banks are within stone’s 
throw of the furnace : an open quarry of loam, sand, blue clay, 
and hematite ore balls, shells, pipes, and mammillary masses, 
thrown down irregularly on one another, in perpetually variable 
quantities and qualities, replacing each other in level layers, 

* Correspondence of secretary A. I. Assoc. 

35 



546 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


horsebacks, lens-shaped masses, with every appearance of tu¬ 
multuous local deposition. No bottom lias been got at 25 feet; 
but rock walls the quarry on one side. The surface, before 
breaking ground, was as irregular as the ore masses. The 
Amenia ore is said to lie along a vertical fissure 30 feet wide, 
more or less, for half a mile, north and south, then bending sud¬ 
denly and running straight again for a mile, in the direction of 
several ore beds several miles distant to the southwest. Ore 
has been taken out in this pit 100 feet beneath the surface, and 
no bottom. 1 

Salisbury Ore-hill is thus described by Shephard in his 
report of 1837. Two miles west of Furnace pond ; open quar¬ 
ries over several acres ; 20 or 25 feet deep, including Big drain, 
Mammoth, Cornstalk, Blodget and Ivelsey’s, Brook and Walk¬ 
er’s pits each explored by a separate company. The first named 
raised 1,000 tons between April and July of 1836, paying a 
leave rent of $1J, and carting for a shilling ($0.12£) a mile. 
The average of the bed 40 years preceding had been 5,000 per 
annum. It was dug through at its western end. At that time 
it fed Chapin’s, Salisbury Company, Canfield’s, Limerock, two 
Cornwall, and Ancram furnaces. Average yield 40 to 50 per 
cent iron, used chiefly for anchors, axles, tires, etc. 

Chatfield’s bed is only quarter of a mile from the Salisbury 
Orehill, southeast, and 100 feet lower; lies north and south, 40 
or 50 feet wide and 25 or 30 deep; both bed and rock dipping 
50° east; the rock decomposed for 10 feet in from the bed ; the 
bed at the south end shutting in to 10 feet wide (going down) 
and wheeling round with a south dip towards an old pit in which 
the dip was southwesterly, and so on in the direction of Orehill. 
Here we have all the features of a dying anticlinal, with a regu¬ 
larly stratified hydrated peroxidized original deposit of iron. 
The Tertiary theory is clearly inadmissible. In 1835 800 tons 
were raised. The fibrous varieties here abound. 

Davis’ bed in Salisbury is three miles northeast of Orehill, the 
ore being found in grey fuller’s earth. Scovil’s and Chapin’s 
beds in North Salisbury are a mile apart, and were abandoned 
from difficulty of draining for eight years previous to 1837 but 
are now wrought. 

Indian pond ore-bed 60 rods east of the pond and 40 to 50 


i Bulletin A. Iron Assoc. 1857. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


547 


Connecticut. 


feet above it at tlie base of a liigb ridge of mica 
slate, is distinctly stratified with tlie rock, dip¬ 
ping 45° east, and covered with drift gravel. The ore becomes 
lean sometimes and the better portions have to be pursued; 
2,000 tons per annum taken out; iron less malleable than Salis¬ 
bury. (Shephard 1837.) 

Kent ore-bed was formerly very important, but was most 
improvidently mined. It lies on the west slope of a low moun¬ 
tain, 200 feet high and 3 miles long, and near its base. The fol¬ 
lowing section given by Shephard is difficult to understand. B 
is the ore bed consisting of a number of nearly parallel beds pa¬ 
rallel with a toot wall of decomposed micaceous gneiss rock (A) 
dipping 60° to 80° east, apparently under the ore, and covered 
with drift gravel (d). The decomposed mass is called by the 
diggers fuller’s earth. The different ore strata beginning at the 



west were called (a) drain vein, b chocolate vein, c blue swamp, 
d anvil ledge, the first two being each about 12 feet thick. In 
1837 the hanging wall impended fearfully, 50 or 60 feet high, 
and terrified men from further working the mine. It consisted 
of decomposing quartz mica slate with same dip as before (80°) 
but in the opposite direction west , as if again under the bed, 
back of which were • alternating strata of quartz, decomposing 
gneiss and quartz mica slate, dipping 20° east nonconformdbly 
says Shephard resting upon the basset edges of the last. Then 
came the artificial pond on the high ground, periodically every 
day let off by a sluice to wash out the mine. Beyond which 
(east) appears massive granitic, sometimes hornblendic gneiss 
dipping 80° to 85° west. The ore after Shephard’s report was 
reopened half a mile along its strike towards the north and still 
yields ore. The anvil ledge requires notice; being an iron 
breccia of quartz and ferruginous jasper fragments cemented by 
limonite (hydrated peroxide iron), with cavities lined with 
minute quartz crystals. It is extremely abundant but makes a 
poor iron on account of the silica. 







548 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


Into Eastern New York the Lower Silurian No. II lime¬ 
stone belt passes with its brown hematite ores. Copake fur¬ 
nace (B 29) has a large open mine at the Harlem railroad sta¬ 
tion in Copake, the ore of which runs from 40 to 45 per cent. 
Limestone, says Mather, crops out a little west of the Copake 
bed and mica slate not far to the east. An ore bed was opened 
before 1837 two or three miles south of it, and two miles north 
of Boston Corners. Northeast furnace (B 30) has its ore beds 
within 30 rods. Benedict’s furnace uses Salisbury ore, these 
famous diggings being but 2-J miles distant to the east. Amenia 
furnace at Wasaic station has a celebrated mine, which feeds not 
only this and some of those already mentioned but some anthra¬ 
cite furnaces also. Dover furnace (B 33) uses principally Ame¬ 
nia ore, a little also from Quaker hill 5 miles southeast, and 
Clove-liill 7 miles west. White’s Dover (B 34) uses the Foss 
bank ore 2 miles southwest of it and one mile west of the rail¬ 
way. Beekman’s furnace (B 35) has its own banks in Union- 
vale 2 miles north which yield 40 to 50 per cent ore. Fishkill 
furnace (B 36) and the Poughkeepsie anthracite stacks (A 13,14) 
are fed from the Hopewell ore bed. Bull’s Falls anthracite fur¬ 
nace (A 5) mixes Quaker hill ore 4 miles west, with Kent ore 31- 
miles east, the Kent has 45 per cent iron, the Amenia makes 
but one ton out of 2-J of ore. 3 

The Columbia and Dutchess County limonites or brown 
hematite ore deposits, says Mather, are numerous and easily 
wrought, pulverulent and compact mixed, mammillary, botryoi- 
dal, spongiform, stalactitic, some with hemispherical and some 
with acicular terminations, others like bunches of pendant moss. 
The mines yielded in 1838 about 20,000 tons per annum, worth 
from $1 50 to $2 50 per ton, feeding 10 furnaces within 12 
miles of Amenia, not including Ancram and Hopewell furnaces. 
The geological position of the ore beds is very constant. Most 
of the beds Mather examined are at the junction of mica or talc- 
ose slate with the grey and white limestone, which crops out 
generally on their west side, the mica or talc on the east, both 
dipping at an angle from 20° to 60° east-southeast. 3 This would 
make the mica slates above the ore and the limestones below it. 


a Bulletin A. Iron Ass. 1857. 


s Report, Assembly Doc. No. 200, page 182. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


549 


Eastern New York, 


The ore would then have been at the 
junction of metamorphosed Lower Silu¬ 
rian formations II and III. 

The Amenia bed in the northwest part of the town presents, 
as described by Dr. Beck, all the varieties observed at Salisbury 
and other localities, occurring in the form of very beautiful 
stalactites, with the same high polish, or black sooty matter 
on the inner surface of the nodules, which frequently show 
a light brown fibrous structure. A beautifully radiated sta¬ 
lactite gave specific gravity 3.828 and on calcination lost 
13.50, Peroxide iron 82.90, silica and alumina 3.60, a trace of 
ox. manganese. The bed was said in 1841 to yield 5,000 tons 
per annum. The Indian pond bed 2^ miles northeast of it, and 
the Squabblehole bed 2 miles south-southwest of it, may be its 
prolongations. 4 Mather estimated the Amenia bed at 100 yards 
broad, 1,000 yards long and 15 yards deep (in one place exca¬ 
vated 45 feet), talc slate cropping out a few rods east and white 
limestone a few rods west; but it is probably only about 30 feet 
broad and has been sunk upon for a hundred feet. 

Foss ore-bed in Dover town 1J miles west-southwest from 
the furnace lies in a valley between two mountain spurs and is 
particularly interesting according to Dr. Beck for “ showing the 
association of the hematite with the mica slate,” here in thick 
strata and garnetiferous. The bed is not of the first class; the 
ore is in large masses, does not exhibit beautiful imitative forms, 
is hard to crush, and contains much foreign matter. 5 

Clove ore-bed in the southwestern part of Union vale is an 
open excavation like the rest, with much fine ochery ore, consid¬ 
ered valuable in the furnace, and has occasional bluish masses 
like specular oxide which on examination consist oi minute crys¬ 
tals of oxide of manganese with a high metallic lustre. Here 
also occurs that rare mineral gibbsite. One analysis gives per¬ 
oxide iron 80.27, water 11.66, insoluble 7.43. 6 The Clove bed is 
bounded on the east {not west) by limestone and is chiefly fibrous 
brown hematite. 7 

Fishkill ore-bed three miles northeast of Hopewell village 
occurs on a coarse gravel hill and contains every variety of ore 
from compact brown to yellow ochre; the brown ore usually in 
hollow nodules, sometimes containing beautiful stalactites and 


* Beck’s Report, page 33. 
6 Beck’s Report, page 32. 


6 Beck’s Report, page 31. 

7 Mather’s Report. 


550 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


their lining of manganese. The bed occurs at the juiction of 
the grey-white limestone with mica and talc slate. 8 

In Mr. Hodge’s report 9 on the Fishkill mine in 1832 he 
says: The hematite ores here, as elsewhere, rest against the 
ledges of limestone. The connection is so universal it may 
almost he regarded as essential. The ridges of this rock are 
hence the best guides for tracing the course of the ores. The 
usual direction of the ridges and ore beds is north and south. 
The latter sometimes, however, spread out in very irregular 
shapes, and to considerable distance from the limestone, as the 
Salisbury bed. At the F. bed some confusion arises from there 
being two ridges of limestone—one running nearly north and 
south, the other northeast and southwest, the ore bed included 
between them. The accompanying plan represents the position 
of these. The two ridges of limestone are seen one on each side 
the ore; that on the west is much broken and low. That on the 
east is more regular and the ore is opened in close proximity to 
it. In the deeper workings a narrow belt of silicious slate and 
quartz only separates the lowest layer of ore from the limestone, 
which dips beneath it. At the point a the workmen are now 

excavating a high breast of ore in the 
direction towards b. From the bottom a 
to the edge above (c) the height is fifty- 
eight feet. The layers of ore vary in 
thickness in this wall. At d , commenc¬ 
ing at the bottom, there is a thickness of 
14 feet very rich in ore, then a barren 
layer of clays and ochres of a few feet 
and above some six feet more of ore— 
above this clays and ochres to the surface. 
The ore beds incline in the direction of 
the arrow, so that they must be worked 
deeper and deeper towards the west. At c a section pre¬ 
sents less ore; at e there is 14 feet of excellent ore above, 
then a varying body of clay etc., of from 10 to 16 feet, and 
below this ore again six feet and more in thickness. At f in 
some old shallow pits on a higher level there are other still 
higher belts of ore of very promising appearance. At b about 



* Beck’s Report, page 31. 


To Joseph Tuckerman, Esq.—in MSS. 




BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


551 


Eastern New York. 


100 foot from the breast at e the 
ore is found in several shallow 
pits, which proves its extension for this distance at least. 
But there are many shallow workings, from which ore was evi¬ 
dently taken out at some former time, that extend full six hun¬ 
dred feet from e southwest, and they widen out beyond the 
dimensions of the excavation at a , which is about 100 feet wide. 
These workings seem to indicate that the course of the bed is 


southwest. I should strongly recommend sinking some shafts 
ahead in this direction, and opening the beds wherever they are 
found richest. By thus keeping some known points in advance 
to which mining operations can be directed in case the one now 
worked at a should not continue to yield alike, the mine is 
always producing, and no want of confidence is entertained of its 
continuing to do so. Wherever the bed is worked deep, it 
should be made to drain to the pump in a. The discovery of 
the ore by Delany to the southwest is additional evidence of the 
bed running this way. There is enough ore to supply the pre¬ 
sent demand for this ore of say 8,000 tons per annum, for many 
years to come, without attempting to go deeper than the present 
lowest workings. 

A topographical geologist will at once decide upon the dying 
anticlinal structure of this exposure. The ores are under the 
limestone formation No. II, which folds over them and carries 
them down beneath the lake. 

Prescott’s ore-bed is one and a half miles north of the Co¬ 
lumbia turnpike in Hillsdale, bounded west by limestone, was 
not much worked before 1822 when Prescott began the manu¬ 
facture of yellow ochre here. The nodules of brown hematite 
increases and the ochre decreases as it descends. (Mather.) 

Westchester Iron Company’s mine in the southeast cor¬ 
ner of Columbia county is described by Hodge in the company’s 
report for 1856, as three and a half miles from the Harlem rail¬ 
road, covering a large extent of ground, with an open cut across 
a little ridge laying bare irregular layers of clays, sands and ore; 
in a tunnel from this cut, 150 feet north, ore is seen as a solid 
wall. Mr. Bushnell reports the ore in similar abundance at 
McClellan’s, a mile southwest of the Reynolds cut. 1 


1 All tlie above details are from the Bulletin of the Amer. Iron Assoc. 1857. 


PART n. -DIVISION II. 


Orange county. In Cornwall, 2£ miles west of Canterbury 
is Thomas Townsend’s hematite ore bed, the ore in powder, 
mixed with balls, between the limestone No. II and the grit 
rock No. I, the rocks in contact being decomposed and mixed 
with the powdered ore. u This stratum of limestone and hema¬ 
tite ore can be traced across the town into Monroe until we reach 
the magnetic oxides already noticed. It is seen a quarter ot a 
mile north of the Clove mine and at many places intermediate 
between this and the Townsend mine in Cornwall. The distance 
is full ten miles. Hematite is also found along the whole west¬ 
ern side of Bellvale mountain and in places along the Warwick 
valley to the New Jersey line.” 2 


Pochunh mine (Col. Joseph Edsall’s) in northern New Jer¬ 
sey, three miles northeast of Hamburg and one south of Smith- 
ville is immediately on the line of the mountain gneiss and white 
metamorphic limestone at the foot of the Pochunk mountain. 
The ore is a mass of concretions, in variegated clays, massive 
and cellular, sometimes fibrous, mammillary, botryoidal, often 
hard enough to require blasting. The workings are dry and the 
feldspar gneiss rocks alongside are decomposed containing much 
'plumbago in powder; clearly indicating (says Rogers) that the 
dissolution of the crystalline limestone has been in part at least 
the cause of this large accumulation of ore. This ore opened 
about 1835 fed Hamburg furnace and was hauled 12 miles to 
Clinton furnace and still further to Ilyerson’s furnace near Pomp- 
ton. But this was fifteen years ago, and being a very irregular 
deposit it is now apparently almost exhausted. Another depo¬ 
sit is described by Rogers in 1810 two miles east of Hamburg 
above Sand and Mud pond forks between the primary base of 
Wallkill mountain and a small knob of gneiss a little west of it 
and near the northern termination of a belt of white crystalline 
limestone which must have occupied this little valley once and 
probably gave origin to the ore. In 1840 the mine was 140 feet 
long, 40 wide and 40 deep, and was discovered by sinking a well. 
No doubt many a valuable deposit lies concealed along the lime¬ 
stone Lower Silurian valley of northern New Jersey, beneath 
the gravel drift. It has been found between Belvedere and 


2 W. Horton’s report to W. W. Mather, appendix (B) State Doc. No. 275, page 165. 



BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


553 


Easton on tlie Delaware, as at Foul Rift, and __ 

in the form of pipe ore. New Jerse y- 

Simpson mine near Smithville is a small depot of specular ore 
in the limestone ; and boulders of brown hematite and specular 
are abundant between Pochunk and Simpson mines and Ham¬ 
burg. No ore is seen in a southwest direction until one reaches 
the franklinite and magnetic beds near Franklin furnace; and 
none further on until we reach the primary Tar and Andover 
mines within a mile and a half of Andover, mixtures of magnetic 
and sulphuret ores. 

Anderson mine has been described on page 427. Ivitchell 
says that it is rather a red oxide (true hematite) than a magnetic 
bank, and that during the eight years’ superintendence of Mr. 
George more than 120,000 tons were sent away. It would not 
be mentioned again in this chapter but for the occurrence, among 
Mr. Hewitt’s list of minerals which are here mined, of specimens 
from masses of limonite , from shallow excavations northeast of 
the great mine, containing amorphous malachite and azurite; 
also powdery limonite in very large masses, with malachite in¬ 
crustations on jasparoid hematite, massive pyrites honeycombed 
by oxidation, etc. etc. with galena (sulphuret of lead) in some 
abundance, generally finely granular and incrusted and mixed 
with a yellow carbonate of lead. Copper pyrites also occurs in 
the Andover mines. It is remarkable that with the abundance 
of various forms of minerals here there should be so little to be 
said about limonite (brown hematite) as a workable ore. Edsall 
mine in the Wallkill mountain (ferruginous) gneiss, four miles 
west of Canisteer pond and three northeast of Upper Hamburg 
was worked for a number of years for Hamburg furnace. (The 
Ogden Wallkill mine 2 to 30 feet thick and 50 feet deep ; the 
Yulcan veins 9 and 10 feet thick; the Sherman Sparta in seve¬ 
ral openings from 3 to 10 feet thick are probably magnetic). It 
is curious that the celebrated Ilurdtown apatite (phosphate of 
lime) mine, with its pyrites, magnetic pyrites, magnetic iron, 
etc. etc., shows no limonite or brown hematite; neither do the 
majority of these primary veins, although they contain an abun¬ 
dance of pyrites. The soda, magnesia and lime of the Lower 
Silurian waters seem to have been necessary for its production. 

Osborn mine , one of the four principal Mount Olive range of 
mines, three miles from Stanhope on the road to Mount Olive, 


i 


554 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


was opened at its discovery in 1848 and is one of the few mag¬ 
netic ore beds mixed with considerable limonite and decomposed 
feldspar. The vein dips 45° southeast, is 10 to 15 feet wide and 
strikes northeast through low ground and it must be steam 
drained. Hilt's mine , also magnetic, contains also some limonite. 
It lies a half mile to the east of the Osborn and is a seam 5 or 6 
feet wide dipping 75° southeast. Like the last, much of its bulk 
consists of altered feldspar and limonite, somewhat polaric, 
masses of white altered feldspar, sometimes associated with 
quartz and decomposed hornblende appear in great quantities 
among the rubbish. This recalls to mind the beds of Kaolin in 
the Brandon and other mines in New England and New York 
and makes the genesis of those brown hematites from magnetic 
ore, or vice versa the genesis of these magnetic ores from brown 
hematite look probable. Drake's mine , two miles southwest of 
Hilt’s, shows the decomposed feldspar stained with limonite. It 
w T as discovered in 1854, 5 feet thick, dipping 45° southeast, 
opened 18 feet deep for 100 feet, in 1856. Stevens' mine , a con¬ 
tinuation of Drake’s, a quarter of a mile southwest of it, disco¬ 
vered in 1848, dipping 45° southeast, 90 feet long, 4 feet wide in 
the middle, 2 at the w r est and 1 at the east end, gets too pyritous 
to work 15 to 20 feet down, but consists until then principally 
of polar, frangible, powdery, decomposed, magnetic ore mixed 
with much limonite and feldspar. Some pieces are heavy and 
rich and others the most powerful magnets. The hanging wall 
is fine-grained feldspar and magnetite, the foot w r all is altered 
feldspar containing much magnetite and much stained with 
limonite. Between Stevens’ and Drake’s mines are a number of 
other openings on the same vein. In one of these similar sur¬ 
face ore is found; but below, the ore is dense and heavy and the 
pyrites uniformly distributed in small strings and bunches. 
“ On attentive examination of the ores of this Mount Olive dis¬ 
trict, there appears to be a great similarity in character among 
them. Thus they all retain indications of having been subjected 
to intense chemical action, being impregnated with limonite and 
highly altered feldspar. In the small opening near Stevens’ 
mine we see distinctly that the whole seam has formerly been 
loaded with pyrites which for a few feet below the surface . . . 
has been removed by oxidation and a quantity of limonite only 
left to indicate its former existence. Now considering the large 

O O 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


555 


quantity of limonite found associated with all jq- ew j erse 
the other ores of this section, analogy leads us 
irresistibly to the supposition that in all probability the struc¬ 
ture of the other seams is the same, and that after descending 
below the point which is probably at or about the water level 
of the locality they will be found to be pyritous to a greater or 
less degree.” (Kitchell, page 179.) 


Marsh’s mine on Schooley’s mountain Washington township Morris county, 500 
yards from the Heath House, is a hard amorphous magnetite vein much stained with 
limonite. Dickenson’s mine 400 yards east of it is similar but shows more horn¬ 
blende. 

The eight magnetic Ringwood mines of Passaic county are too pure to show much 
limonite decomposition, but contain decomposed feldspar. Most of them as de¬ 
scribed by Kitchell are not only sedimentary beds, but double beds, with rock part¬ 
ings. Some contain phosphate of lime; but the whole mass is so composed as not 
to furnish limonite. Iron pyrites seems rare. 

The nine principal magnetic Mount Hope mines, 20 miles southwest of the Ring- 
wood group, are still older and more important, four of them in Mount Hope, three 
in Hickory Hill, and two in Mount Teabo. “ The old Openwork, jugular, or Mount 
Hope mine is distinctly seen to be stratified, says Mr. Wurtz, at the northeast ex¬ 
tremity of the open cut; and the strata are parallel with the gneiss strata on each 
side, all standing nearly vertical, and the foot wall covered with vertical furrows or 
marks of sliding. The hanging wall is highly hornblendic and schistose with intei'pos- 
ing layers of brown mica ; the foot wall contains much decomposed feldspar and 
some magnetic iron. Phosphate of lime occurs. Bed divided by a rock parting, 
or horse, and the ores differ in the upper and lower bed thus made. No limonite is 
mentioned in connection with any of these openings. The Mount Hope tunnel, 
driven in from the southeast foot of the hill, 500 feet in 1855, to cut the jugular 
vein, cuts three other seams, first one from 2 to 3 feet thick, then the Brannin vein 
3 to 4 feet thick, thirdly the Teabo (?) vein 5 or 6 feet thick. The rock at the en¬ 
trance is a coarse schistose quartz-feldspar, the latter much decomposed. The first 
ore is granular crumbly mixed with very much altered apatite (plios. lime), hanging 
wall decomposed feldspar gneiss mixed with much limonite , foot wall same but more 
decomposed. Second ore, laminated, much apatite, with slickenside fissures, hang¬ 
ing wall highly schistose black mica and white feldspar, foot wall coarse schist feld¬ 
spar and quartz with particles of magnetic iron. Rock 330 feet in, large granular 
schist feldspar quartz with magnetic iron dispersed. Rock 430 feet in, schist of 
green feldspar and white quartz with particles of magnetic iron and seams of pyrites. 
Third ore hard, fine, quartzose cleft, often pyritous, hanging wall like last, but finer 
and pyritous, foot wall same with seams of red hematite and pyrites. 

Thus Limonite is a very subordinate and accidental occurrence in these magnetic 
veins. At Clay mine it occurs in honeycomb quartz rock filling the cavities. Half 
a mile southeast of the Mount Hope mine is a deposit of bog limonite however, cover¬ 
ing about 15 acres, one or two feet deep among pebbles, with much manganese, 
less phosphate of lime, no sulphur, no lime and no magnesia. Another such bog is 
seen a mile north of Dover and others nearer town. The Elizabeth vein on Mount 
Teabo is magnetic but deserves mention here as illustrating the disturbance of the 
region, as its average dip of 72° (6 feet thick) changes every eight or ten feet going 


rAKT II. -DIVISION n. 


k ^ /*> 

000 

down, over a series of horizontal undulations. The Teabo mine is 200 feet deep 
The Allen bed is double (rock parting) and then single 22 feet thick, the hanging 
rock being a curious mixture of magnetic iron and hornblende, the parting of mag¬ 
netic iron and feldspar and the foot wall of green feldspar with black hornblende 
and magnetic iron ; but no limonite is anywhere mentioned, except as staining the 
ore in one of the side workings. Here occur those curious and interesting masses 
of true conglomerate composed of sharply angular masses and also nodules of crys¬ 
talline granular magnetic iron, evidently fragments of a formerly existing formation , 
which has been broken into pieces by violence, cemented together by a white opaque 
crystalline carbonate of iron (chalybite), so purely white and free from stain, so 
pearly, as to have been mistaken for pearlspar, or dolomite. Its beautiful rhomb- 
ohedrons line cavities and show their characteristic curved faces. It occurs some¬ 
times associated with large masses of pulverulent limonite , probably the product of 
its own decomposition, sometimes also with crystals of pyrites of the metamorphosis 
of which it may itself be a product. (Kitchell.) 

Mount Pleasant mine is magnetic and curious for its five faults or downthrows, 
diagrams of which are given in Kitchell’s report, p. 203, important additions to 
American structural geology, in regions out of the anthracite basins of Pennsylvania. 
But neither here nor in the Huff is any mention made of limonite. The Iron- 
dale and Hubbard mines are remarkable for dipping only 30°. The Stirling 16 foot 
bed is parted by rock into numerous small beds. These mines with the Corwin, Mel- 
lan, Byram, Brotherton, Dickenson, all show more or less phosphate of lime (apa¬ 
tite) with their magnetic ores, but no mention is made of limonite (brown hematite). 
The six faults of the By ram are also portrayed in the report, page 213. Some of its 
ore is a little stained with limonite. Wurtz describes the Dickenson bed as an im¬ 
mense cake or lens of magnetic ore, embedded in gneiss, and split on its edges with 
parting rocks which knife-edge far into the ore mass, which obeys all the contor¬ 
tions of the gneiss; no limonite is mentioned among its minerals ; nor in the King 
mine, which is a compound bed with schist partings; nor in the Logan beds, which 
run 50 feet apart; nor in the Hibernia triple bed, with rock partings, drawn and de¬ 
scribed elaborately in the report page 222. Here also occur conglomerate layers 
of angular fragments of magnetic iron, decomposed feldspar, mica, etc. like those 
at the Allan mine above described, but cemented not with chalybite (carbonate of 
iron) but with calcite somewhat ferriferous ; but no limonite is mentioned; the bed 
is sometimes double, 8 feet ore, 5 feet hornblende schist, 6 feet ore, dip 86° south¬ 
east, wrought 125 feet deep. It is not certain whether these three layers are the 
same as at the Lower Wood mine but this is probable. The Beach mines, also 
on the old Hibernia tract, nearly a mile southwest of the Lower Wood, cropping out 
520 feet above the Hibernia brook and within 20 feet of the summit of the steep 
ridge, averages 3J- feet and dips 80° between hornblende schist, but shows no trace 
of limonite; neither do the Beachglen, Kitchell and Muir, and Sweed mines, all of 
which are mixtures of magnetic ore and hornblende in feldspar rocks with associated 
minerals but no trace of the hydrated peroxide of iron. The Beachglen is remarkable 
for its satisfactory evidences of aqueous origin, as Kitchell’s figures show. The per¬ 
verseness with which the old igneous theory compelled Mr. Rogers to overlook these 
facts and follow it backwards into what are now evident absurdities cannot be better 
illustrated than by what he says in his Report of 1836 (page 114) about the date of 
the origin of these beds, viz. that “ in all probability the strata were at a pretty 
steep inclination previous to the appearance of the veins between the rock; for it is 
inconceivable how a forcible injection of fluid ore could enter a series of beds, lying 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


557 


in a nearly horizontal position without in any one North New Jersey, 
case causing and occupying fissures transverse 

to the strata.” Mr. Rogers could not help noticing this universal absence 
of branch veins; yet in spite of that observation, his theory blinded him to 
the fact that some of these veins lie at an angle of only 30°, while others are waved 
and bent in such a way as to make side branches inevitable—granting a run of hot 
metal—at any date of injection he might fix upon. 


In the gneissic region of Southeastern Pennsylvania 

west of the Schuylkill and north of the Chester county valley are 
several important and curious beds of brown hematite, not in¬ 
stantly connected with limestone, but inclosed between Gneiss 
and New red sandstone. The gneiss country, undulated into 
parallel synclinals once filled in with tongues of new red sand¬ 
stone, when it finally rose and lifted the new red to its present posi¬ 
tion in the air, seems to have been cracked afresh along its old 
synclinals, and as one side or the other of the crack went down a 
strip of new red carried down with it was preserved from the de¬ 
struction of the rest. Long drainage through ferruginous rocks 
into the hollow of the surface along these downthrows then en¬ 
sued resulting in the ore deposits. Such is Rogers’s theory de¬ 
scribed in his Final Report, vol. i page 86, where he says “ they 
have evidently been derived by percolation from their strata, by 
the Ions: continued trickling of the surface waters in the lines of 
fracture.” But the indefinite way in which he speaks of dykes 
and injections of granite, and the metamorpliism of the New Red 
sandstone layers caught in the cracks, together with the doubt 
he expresses whether the Morgan Hoffman limestone “ be a true 
igneous dyke or vein of carbonate of lime, or a closely com¬ 
pressed synclinal trough of sedimentary limestone metamor¬ 
phosed by heat” leaves little influence to be exerted by his 
judgment in the premises. It is certainly possible, for all we 
know, that such a fissure should emit hot gases and even lava to 
act upon the rocks on either side. But where is the evidence of 
any such emission here; or that white feldspathic granite can be 
so emitted anywhere; and less credible is it still that white crys¬ 
talline marble ever flowed molten from the earth. On the other 
hand a fissure kept always full of acidulated waters of a complex 
composition with very few and slow side accessions of mere sedi¬ 
mentary matter and that of course in form of feldspathic clay, 
must continue to be, until filled up, a laboratory of metamorphic 



558 


PART ir.-DIVISION II. 


action; action directed as well upon its wall rocks as upon its 
slowly accreting sediments. No tire is needed, no igneous dykes, 
nor liot infernal vapors. The crack beneath it may be hermeti¬ 
cally sealed. Time and the reagents present, evolving heat suf¬ 
ficient for the work, will do it well. It is from the causes of 
such a laboratory that the plumose mica in the geodes, the plum¬ 
bago and mica in the red sandstone, and may we not add 
the granite facing of the gneiss must receive their exegesis. 

The entire absence of limestone would make the genesis of 
these ores more difficult; but as Mr. Ilogers says, several of the 
banks adjoin limestone; a strip of it has been uncovered in the 
Lewis bank; at Kimberton it occurs, sparry, with spangles of 
plumbago, within 200 feet. 

East and west of Yellow Springs in the basin of Pickering 
creek, lie Lewis’s bank, Fegeley’s bank, the Latschaw mine, the 
Steitler bank, Jones’s and other lesser deposits. 3 The first rests 
in a triangular cleft between steep northeast dipping Gneiss and 
southeast 45° pitching altered New Red sands and shales; white 
feldspathic granite close by the southern wall. The ore, a sandy 
brown variety, fills the crevice, “ very little of it penetrating the 
adjoining rocks.” Some of the red sandstone shows spangles of 
plumbago and crystals of specular ore. The red shales appear 
less altered. The quarry, 30 to 50 feet deep, lies along the cen¬ 
tre of the valley in a line with another a mile northwest of Yel¬ 
low Springs, and a third a little south of Kimberton, but the last 
appears in the absence of red sand to be a wash from gneiss. 
Lewis’s ore goes to Plioenixville. 

Fegeley's bank is one of two in the vale just back of Yellow 
Springs, lying in a similar trench between a southeast wall of 
Gneiss and a 40° southeast pitch of New Red, a hundred feet 
wide and as many deep. Half decomposed feldspathic granites 
penetrate the gneiss. The quarry of ore is 40 feet wide by 50 
deep and 200 long; in the next bank the ore is 12 feet wide at 
the bottom. The two yield annually 4,400 tons of ore to Phoe- 
nixville. 

The Latschaw and Steitler beds lie along another fault south¬ 
west of Yellow Springs. In both, the gneiss is nearly vertical 
with a dyke wall face of decomposing white feldspathic granite, 
against which (southeast) plunges the broken beds of sand and 

3 Described by Rogers, vol. i. p. 87. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


559 


S. E. Pennsylvania. 


shale, tlie ore lying on the slanting 
crushed and squeezed New Red, here 
very crystalline, and full of scales of mica and plumbago 
as if it were a gneiss. The Steitler bed was wrought 50 
years ago by Mr. Vanleer and has yielded annually for some 
years past from 3,000 to 5,000 tons of excellent ore, containing 
now and then a little black oxide of manganese and pyrites. 
Bombshells are very common in it; inclosing not rarely also 
'plumose white mica. The neighboring Jones’s mine is on another 
fault filled with fragments of gneiss, granite and highly altered 
red sandstone, cemented and mixed in throughout with ore. 
The southeast pitching rocks look here very much like gneiss. 

The Montgomery and Chester county ore belt crossing 
the Schuylkill near Spring Mill is about a mile wide, occupying 
the southern margin of the limestone valley, flanked on the south 
by the Edge Hill and Barren Hill with its Sandstone (Potsdam 
or Primal) and extending its northern margin into the middle of 
the valley “ beyond the narrow limit of the crystalline limestone 
or marble.” The ore ranges in long narrow strips or tongues of 
ferruginous soil, covering the undulating outcrop of the lime¬ 
stone, the most productive belts being one north of Barren Hill 
and one north of the white and clouded marble. But good ore 
occurs in spots north of this general northern margin, as at 
Wood’s bank, on limestone, under which lies sandstone. Kirh- 
ner’s bank, east of the Schuylkill near Spring Mill, was opened 
about 1815. IHtner's banks near Marble Hall yielded in 1852 
about 10,000 and in 1853 more than 12,000 tons of ore. The 
whole amount taken out annually from all the banks east of the 
Schuylkill along the limestone basin of Montgomery and Chester 
is estimated at about 60,000 tons. 

West of the Schuylkill several banks lie in the narrow lime¬ 
stone valley south of Bethel. Whitehall's and Fisher's pits, a 
mile from the river, feed Merion furnace. The Caldwell and 
Roberts's old pit at the Baptist meeting-house, 76 feet deep lies 
on white marble. Fisher's large bank in Upper Merion yielded 
also excellent ore. At Fisher's new and Widdart's bank, sup¬ 
plying Phoenixville works, the proportion of dirt to ore was 3 to 
1 in 1854. Milliton's bank supplied the Conshohocken furnace. 
Otto's new bank showed dirt and ore as 2 to 1 . Supplee and 
Hampton's , Hughes and Jones's banks form a large group of 
small pits. South of Howelville small banks are owned 


560 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Wilson, Woodman and others, one of which reverses the above 
proportion and giving 2 of ore to 1 of dirt to Phoenixville. 
Jones's and C. Beaver's large banks are half a mile from Centre- 
ville. Buck and King's , Sam. Beaver's are large banks ; the 
latter is uncommonly near the northern margin of the valley. 
Holland's bank 17 miles northwest of Ilowelville was 45 feet 
deep and supplied Phoenixville in 1854. 

West of Paoli IP. Buchanan's yields 2 parts ore to 1 dirt and 
supplies the Conshohocken furnace. G. W. Jacob , Maguire and 
Evans have a number of banks further on towards the Ship 
tavern. F. Neal has three in a line. 

West of Coatesville two or three small banks lie towards the 
southern side of the valley. 4 

The ."Lancaster county ore banks lie in isolated limestone 
basins surrounded by Potsdam (Primal) Sandstone No. I. Four 
such parallel basins cross Big Beaver creek, the longest not two 
miles long. A fifth crosses a branch of the Pequea, and a sixth 
wider than the rest crosses the Pequea and contains on its 
margin Mylin's pit, an open qnarry at the junction of lime¬ 
stone and black slates opened recently in 1854 and yielding 
5,000 tons in 1855 of moderately rich ore to the Lancaster furnace 
(Conestoga). Between the Pequea and Susquehanna are three 
more limestone basins long and narrow, the southern one (Eshal- 
man’s Bun) containing Coleman's banks a mile from Shenk’s 
ferry, the ore of which supplies Safe Harbor works. The second 
basin is a mile and half further north, runs from within a mile 
of the Pequea, across the Conestoga at Safe Harbor, and half a 
mile beyond, and contains another ore bank of the Safe Harbor 
works. A mile further north the third basin four miles long 
crosses the Conestoga above the works and contains a third bank 
with indications of others. 

All these brown hematite ore deposits occur precisely at the 
junction of the Primal Slates and Magnesian Limestone (I and 
II) according to Bogers, and are in some cases true rock ores and 
not surface deposits. One section standing at an angle of 40° 
reads: Mica slate decomposed 14 feet; Sandy ore; Solid brown 
ore 6 feet; Mica slate sandy decomposed 10 feet; Talc slate blue 
decomposed 30 feet. 5 One of the mine shafts descends 135 feet 
and is worked by two levels. 

m 4 Rogers’s Final Report 1858. Vol. i. pp. 216, 217. 

6 See section in Rogers’s Final Report, vol. i. p. 218. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


561 


The Conewango bank 50 or 60 feet deep _ _ . 

and yielding 150 tons per week shows the ’ enns y vania. 
ore as resulting from the decomposition and leaching of the fer¬ 
ruginous slates, one-tliird part of the mass consisting of the clay 
and sand ol the slate. The ore yields about 40 per cent metal¬ 
lic iron at Conewango and York furnaces. 6 

In York county west of the Susquehanna a belt of brown 
hematite ores mixed with much oxide of manganese and there- 
fore making a poor charcoal-iron keeps the southern edge of the 
Lower Silurian (Auroral) Limestone No. I, a little south of Han¬ 
over and of late years has been extensively mined. 

Another belt follows (outside of) the northern edge of the 
limestone along the southern base of the Pigeon Hills, and was 
mined 45 years ago at Moulds, 5 miles northeast of Hanover, 
where rocky masses of it lie around upon a deposit a hundred 
feet deep, but the ore is too silicious to be valuable. 7 


Warwick Mine or Jones’s mines in the southern corner of 
Berks county Pennsylvania, near the eastern disappearance of 
the Lancaster Limestone beneath the New Red as it approaches 
the Schuylkill, lies about three miles northeast of Morgantown, 
in an open quarry of five acres, with another of one acre south of 
it. Magnesian limestone (No. II), dipping 20° north 30° west over 
ore-bearing slates, forms the northern wall and is struck 50 feet 
from the surface in a shaft 180 feet deep, in the floor of which a 
boring 20 feet further down finds no bottom to the rock. 

A trap dyke near the southern side penetrates the ore-bearing 
slates and is considered the cause of the magnetic and crystalline 
aspect of the ore, which is richest and purest next the trap in 
both mines. Some of the ore contains small amounts of sul- 
phuret, carbonate and silicate of copper, which the American 
Mining Company of New York in 1850-4, undertook to extract 
with a magnetic separator but failed to make it profitable. The 
iron ore has been mined with more or less regularity ever since 
the Revolutionary war and Mr. Rogers states the product in 
1853 to have been about 7,000 tons, and the annual product 
for the four years of the copper enterprise including 1853 not 
less than 10,000 tons. 8 

• Rogers’s F. R. p. 219. 7 P. 223. 

8 Rogers’s Final Report vol. i. p. 182. Annual Report of 1840. 

36 



562 


PART II. —DIVISION II. 


The position of this mine may be profitably compared with 
that of the Ainenia and similar mines in eastern New York with 
limestone on one side and gneiss upon the other. 

Chestnut-hill brown hematite ore bank, of which a very sat- 
factory picture is given on page 183 of Rogers’s Final Report 
vol. i. is situated 3^ miles northeast of Columbia Lancaster 
county Pennsylvania, in a high valley of apparently synclinal 
structure of gentle dips, quite flat in the centre, where the ore 
is worked by open benches to a depth of about 100 feet, the 
ore prevailing throughout from top to bottom. The great mine 
occupies about a dozen acres. Grubb’s mine is half a mile dis¬ 
tant. The floor of the mine is hard white Potsdam sandstone 
or the grey slaty layers over it. The walls show horizontal wavy 
layers of blue, yellow and white laminated unctuous clays from 
40 to 60 feet deep containing ore, and under these an irregular 
layer of hard concretionary cellular fibrous brown hematite ore 
from 10 to 30 feet thick down to the sandstone floor, which is 
still the water-bearing rock of the neighborhood. Other conso¬ 
lidated layers of ore may be detected overlying occasional local 
seams of tighter clay. 

Crystalline magnetic ore is seen at one point only in this mine, 
in a band three or four inches thick containing small octahedral 
crystals. Mr. Rogers has no hesitation in ascribing its presence 
here to heat and in accounting for the fact that in the Warwick 
and Cornwall mines it is so much more abundant by supposing 
a more energetic heat. But he offers no conjecture on the 
strange way so general an agent as heat could find to enter a 
great mine at but one point and confine its magnetizing and 
crystallizing work within the limits of a layer not half a foot in 
breadth. No doubt the chemists will explain the presence of 
these crystals in a better way. 

The celebrated Warwick and Cornwall mines in Berks and 
Lebanon counties Pennsylvania are described by Rogers as open¬ 
ings in the ferruginous uppermost layers of No. I, his upper Pri¬ 
mal Slate, just underneath the lowest layers of Trenton Lime¬ 
stone, No. II, his Auroral Limestone, and they belong therefore 
properly neither to the primary system nor to the brown hema¬ 
tite system of our ores. The equally celebrated Chestnut-hill 
bank in Lancaster county exposes the lower strata of the same 
(Upper Primal) slate down to the floor of Potsdam (Middle Pri- 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


563 


E. Pennsylvania. 


mal) Sandstone No. I. Evidently the 
ore was an original dissemination 
through the sandy mud layers which hardened into slate. 
The surface waters, which were then more copious and 
perhaps much warmer than at present and was charged, it may 
he supposed, with carbonic acids and other volcanic exhalations 
of that stormy atmosphere, washed through the mass carrying 
down the iron as a peroxide to the face of the sandstone or 
against the upper side of the occasional layers of lighter clay 
which hindered their descent. If the sulphur was in excess at 
first, that is, if the iron was in the form of sulphuret when dis¬ 
seminated (not a' probable supposition), then we must suppose it 
leached away in the form of free sulphuric acid. But, as the 
very reason why this great bed of ore lies here is that the slates 
were here horizontal and the iron therefore could not be carried 
off, we must conclude that all the original sulphur is here also, 
and that presupposes the original dissemination of the iron in 
the form of a carbonate or of a hematite. If of a carbonate, 
then we have at this early day an antitype of events repeated in 
the coal measures, where disseminated carbonate of iron has 
been leached through its containing sandy shales down upon the 
face of Limestone layers like the Bulirstone or great lower 
fossiliferous Limestone of Northwest Pennsylvania. The same 
filtrating process is illustrated in the fossil ores of the Clinton 
(Rogers’s Surgent) No. Y Formation, where peroxide of iron 
has descended to envelop whole layers of shells and grains of 
sand, but under very different circumstances. 

In the case of the Fossil ore of Y it was earnestly debated 
fifteen years ago among the geologists of the Pennsylvania sur¬ 
vey whether the facts then known respecting it would warrant 
the assumption that it was only rich where flat and always lean 
where it stood steeply pitching. The question involved, as every 
one can see, the origin of the iron,—not in the Formation, but 
in its particular bed; for if it could be determined to be true 
that the thickness and richness of the ore deposit was in propor¬ 
tion to the gentleness of dip, and was at a maximum when the bed 
was horizontal at the bottom of a trough, it would in reason fol¬ 
low that the deposition of the ore in its present bedded form was a 
separate and subsequent affair to the original formation of the 
rocks,—subsequent of course to the upheaval and entroughment 


5G4 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


of the whole formation,—consequent in fact upon its entroughed 
or horizontal posture. In other words the leaching waters must 
be stopped by some sort of d’aphragm or filtering screen, and 
this could not so well happen where the rocks were steeply in¬ 
clined and the waters found their way between the layers, as 
vdien the rocks lay flat and the waters seeped directly through 
their sand against some lower face of clay. At that time so lit¬ 
tle had been done in mining the fossil ore of Y that the question 
could not be answered ; in fact it cannot yet be answered with 
an absolute conviction; but yet enough is known to make it 
probable that the fossil ore will be ahvays found more abundant 
in its beds where these lie pretty flat as at Norwich, Clinton, 
Bloomsbury, Frankstown, Cumberland and Cumberland Gap, 
than where they stand more erect as at Chulasky, Lockhaven, 
and along the outcrops of the steeper anticlinals of the Kitta- 
tinny and the mountains back of it. 

But another point of evidence in the case of the Fossil ore of 
V and the Bulirstone ore of the coal measures must be observed 
before we apply the example to elucidate the case of the older 
ores. The abundance of fossil life encased in iron was at first a 
mystery. The w r aters in which these creatures lived must w T hile 
they lived have been approximately pure. They lived upon 
clay and were entombed in a sandy mud. The iron must have 
come in with the sandy shales above, in which few fossils are 
found, and subsequently percolated to the fossil bed below, en¬ 
veloping the shells and grains of sand. 

That the original introduction of iron where we see it now in 
a state of high oxidation was no local act is well knowm. The 
fossil ore of Y extends from Middle New York to Alabama and 
Wisconsin. The buhrstone beds of XII are coextensive w r ith 
great areas of the coal. What shall we say then to the appear¬ 
ance of brown hematite deposits along the outcrop of the Tren¬ 
ton Limestone and Potsdam Sandstone (Formations I and II) 
from Canada East to Alabama, and in the interior valleys wher¬ 
ever these formations lift themselves to-day ? But the obvious 
conclusion cannot be confined to the case of beds that occur 
within the limestone limits; it must avail in discussing the ge¬ 
nesis of the Cornwall, Chestnut-hill and Warwick beds, in the 
slates below the limestone. The fact that the same phenomena 
appear at these three points distant from each other scores of 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


565 


E. Pennsylvania. 


miles, and at many others 9 proves that 
they are not local deposits in the strict 
sense of the term, in the sense in which lava outbursts for 
example are, or igneous veins of any other kind, if any other 
kind there he. The waters of that opening age of life may or 
may not have been more troubled than our own, and oceans may 
have been larger or smaller then than now ; but certainly 
coasts more indented, islands more numerous, oscillations of the 
crust more frequent and currents engaged with coast lines of 
more original and various minerals than now, must have made 
mineral deposits less homogeneous and evenly spread out than 
those of later days. Absolute synchronism was not half so pos¬ 
sible as it became in after times, and it is not to be wondered at 
that the inflows of iron stuff should have occurred at one point 
a few yards lower (that is earlier) in the Primal Slates than at 
another point distant fifty miles. 

Now when we add to this the element of posture , we recog¬ 
nize at once how little chance, in an old, contorted, complicated 
region like southeastern Pennsylvania, the Primal Iron Slates 
would have to maintain a flat position favorable to the perfect 
hematization and collection of the ore in layers and masses at 
the bottom ; at how few points therefore the actually universal 
presence of the iron would afterwards succeed in manifesting 
itself in such magnificent displays of mineral wealth as these. 

It ought not to be accounted out of place here, for the whole 
course of the argument is backward in the line of time, to end 
it with the probability that the so-called primary veins, pene¬ 
trating still older systems of rocks than these, were once, like 
the above described, deposits of brown hematite, converted to 
their present state by a metamorpliic agency not yet to be well 
explained. Their frequent sedimentary aspect, their continuity 
and discontinuity at once, their parallel imbedment between 
sedimentary rocks, the presence of zinc as in the brown hema¬ 
tite beds, and of phosphorus and phosphate of lime, all point to 
the confessed analogy between them and the brown hematites as 
a probable identity. The absence of sulphur leaving many of 
the primary iron ores cold-short is no conclusive objection to 


9 Large deposits of brown hematite are not infrequent in the soil of the Primal Newer 
Slates. Throughout the Appalachian chain much valuable iron ore is discovered in con¬ 
nection with the same formation. (Rogers, vol. i. p. 202.) 


566 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


considering them originally deposits of brown hematite, since 
some of these yield also cold-short ores ; and an excess of phos¬ 
phorus or silica would make them so as well as the absence of 
sulphur ; while in many primary ores sulphur is an abundant 
element. That Iron ever ilowed from the earth like lava is be¬ 
coming doubtful to many well trained minds; and where a sedi¬ 
mentary origin can be so reasonably argued and inferred, and 
seeing that the rocks in which the primary ores are found have 
ceased for some years to receive the name of primary, and are 
now well proven to be sedimentary themselves down to the low¬ 
est layer visible upon the oldest ground examined yet, it seems 
unwise to base our practical geology in iron upon an igneous 

It is now known that the Mediterranean sea water holds so large a proportion of 
copper in solution as not only to color itself thereby its deep peculiar blue, but to 
deposit the metal upon and within all objects floating in it for a length of time, and 
of course the mud collecting in its bed. This when hereafter dried and hardened, 
if the world last long enough for such a change, will resemble somewhat the cu¬ 
preous shales of Formation VIII in the Devonian system of the United States. 

It is also known that the Atlantic Ocean water holds a percentage of silver in 
solution, and electrotypes all copper-sheathed vessels with it. Of course its lime¬ 
stone deposits are argentiferous like those of ancient days—days when gold also 
was thus held suspended and precipitated with gelatinous quartz derived from 
boiled and acidulated sand, in beds of sulphur-iron slate. 

Much ore follows the northern base of the Easton or Durham 
hills at the lower or southern limit of the Lower Silurian Lime¬ 
stone No. II, as, near the Philadelphia road two and a half miles 
south of Allentown and between Emaus and Millerstown, in 
abundance. But the ores of eastern middle Pennsylvania are 
found at some distance north of the base of the mountain. 

The principal line of beds begins five miles north of Bethlehem 
in soil-deposits a hundred feet deep resting on limestone. The 
ore is small and must be washed and screened. This belt crosses 
the Leliigli three miles above Allentown, where it yields pipe 
ore and much red oxide of iron in clay between the limestone 
outcrops, all needing washing. West of the Leliigli it curves 
• northward and then westward keeping one wall of limestone and 
being at least 70 feet in depth. The deposits follow the tongue 
of Limestone II which runs westward into and under the Lower 
Silurian Slates III. North of Jordan creek on to Sieger’s tavern 
ore abounds near the margin of the slate. 

The noted Balliot mine, one of the best in eastern Pennsylva- 






BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


567 


E. Pennsylvania. 


nia and long worked, lies near the north¬ 
ern limit of the limestone where it goes 
under the slate, and yields honeycomb ore near the surface and 
compact ore below. In one of its northwestern workings a de¬ 
posit of black oxide of manganese was struck, said to be four 
feet thick. Large deposits of sulphurous clays are characteristic 
of parts of this and other brown hematite formations. The line 
of ore-beds above mentioned continues southwest to Shoemaker's 
old mine (deserted) two miles north east of Trexlertown, where 
also and in the interval country between it and Millerstown and 
Breinigsville is much ore found. Manganese appears near the 
Trexlertown big spring, and a mile further west occurs a noted 
copperas iron mine , three borings in which, given by Mr. Rogers, 
are of interest in discussing these deposits. 


Feet. 


Feet. 


Feet. 


15 

Clay, gravel 

30 

Clay 

14 

1 

Iron ore 


Iron ore and } 

8 

15 

Clay 

n 

Clay j 




Iron ore 

9 

Slate 5 

Black clay 

2 

Clay 

3 

In clay 6 

Sulp. iron 

12 

Copperas earth 

6* 

Pipe ore & clay 9 

Iron ore 

5 

Brown clay & ore 8 



Rock iron ore 

2 


• 


Clay 

8 


The Copperas earth marked 6* has its middle two feet mixed 
with black clay and its lowest two feet with white clay. The 
black oxide of manganese is found in the upper part of the iron 
ore in the west side of the mine. The silicious slate is some¬ 
what gypseous from the reaction of sulphate of iron on carbonate 
of lime. Mr. Rogers, or the Pennsylvanian geologist who fur¬ 
nished this chapter of the Final Report, ascribes the abundant 
sulphuret of iron here to a shallow bed of black slate JSTo. Ill, 
which appears to have once rested on the limestone and subse¬ 
quently undergone disintegration. Trexler’s furnace south of 
Metztovvn gets its ore from numerous banks, as far as Ivutztown 
and Moselem, mixing it with magnetic from three miles south. 

The Moselem bank is one of the oldest and finest in the 
country, lying five miles west-southwest of Ivutztown and is, like 
Balliot’sbank, near the northern border of the Limestone II where 
it passes under the Slate III and within 1,000 feet of the foot of 


568 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


the slate hills. The ore is commonly reached in from 20 to 40 
feet from the surface, and lies in nests and irregular layers from 
one to eight feet thick, some of it bluish and manganesian. A 
gentle southwise rise carries the limestone under it up to the top 
of the rid«;e next south of the mines covered with loose masses 
of dark-colored chert some of them weighing several hundred 
weight. White clay is found in the ore hank. 

Hampton furnace (E 48) uses beds in its neighborhood 12 
miles southwest of Allentown; Mary Ann furnace (E 49) 18 
miles northeast of Reading has its own beds within one and two 
miles ; Oley furnace (E 50) uses Deishler’s ore eight miles north¬ 
east of it; Sally Ann furnace (E 51) uses Trexlertown and Mose- 
lem ores ; Mount Laurel furnace (E 52) six miles nortli-northeast 
of Reading uses Moselem, Dumm, and Hefner ores in Richmond 
township 14, 11 and 16 miles northeast of Reading and 8, 6 and 
10 miles from the furnace, the two last mentioned lying along 
the South mountain. Maiden creek furnace (E 53) uses Moselem 
(7 miles) Coxtown (10 miles) Trexlertown (13 miles east) ores. 

West of the Schuylkill the brown hematite ore-beds have been 
opened in many places, but are commonly of small extent. In 
this part of the valley the Cornwall ore-bed described in the 
last chapter almost monopolizes attention, and all the furnaces 
run upon it more or less. Hampton, Joanna, Hopewell and 
Keystone furnaces use the Warwick and Chester county mines. 
The Union Deposit (A 82) eleven miles east of Harrisburg uses 
Cornwall ore, but has two small brown hematite deposits 
(Herthey and Union Deposit Banks) three miles north of it. 


The Primal newer slate sustains extensive surface-deposits, of a somewhat dis- 
• tinctive variety, of brown hematitic ores, a few descriptive and theoretical observa¬ 
tions upon which may not be out of place here. These relate not only to the ore of 
this formation as it is seen in Pennsylvania, but to the whole enormous outcrop of 
the stratum wherever it is largely developed from Eastern Tennessee to the Green 
mountains of Vermont.* 

This iron ore is lodged in extensive accumulations of yellow ferruginous loam 
and clay, occupying hollows or basins in the surface of the Primal newer slate, at 
the northwest base, or low on the northwest slopes, of the ridges and spurs of the 
South mountains of Pennsylvania, or of their prolongation the Blue Ridge in Vir¬ 
ginia and Tennessee, and the Green mountains in Vermont. Diluvial waters have 
apparently caused these deposits of loam, into the lower parts of which the particles 


* This, and what follows, is from Rogers’s Final Report, Vol. II. 



BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


569 


of the oxide of iron have been conveyed by the dissolv- E.Pennsylvania, 

ing and transporting action of percolating waters, and 

there collected into irregular nodular masses of very various structure. Some 
of these are stalactitic, but the ore of the Primal slate is more frequently in 
roundish cellular lumps, and even sometimes in hollow bomb-shaped geodes. 
The latter often consist of crystallized fibrous hematite, but the earthy brown 
hydrated peroxide is by far the most commonly met with. The masses are dis¬ 
tributed in the loam without definite stratification, or any apparent order, being 
in greatest abundance towards the bottom of the deposit. 

In some of the present class of mines, though not in all. there occur, mingled with 
the iron ore, small masses of peroxide of manganese, and these are occasionally 
stalactitic in their form. The oxide of manganese is, moreover, chemically com¬ 
bined with the oxide of iron in much of the iron ore, and when in any considerable 
abundance, is a serious hindrance to the fusion of the ore in the blast-furnace. For 
this reason it is that these ores have usually been less in favor with our iron-smelt¬ 
ers than the purer varieties which overlie the adjacent tracts of the Matinal lime¬ 
stone. Respecting the ultimate source of the oxides of iron and manganese, it is to 
be sought in the ferruginous slates upon which the deposits repose. The loamy soil 
imbedding the ore appears to have been derived from the disintegration of the slate 
previously collected in a fragmentary or even pulverized condit ion in the depressions 
of the surface. Under the action of the percolating rain and springs, these materi¬ 
als would be converted into a mere loam, and the oxide of iron set free. Much of 
the iron has been originally in the condition of the sulphuret of iron, diffused in 
minute crystals through certain layers of the slate. The facility with which this 
mineral undergoes decomposition, and gives rise to hydrated peroxide of iron upon 
the access of atmospheric air and the rain water, is a fact familiar to chemists. 
This view of the origin of a part at least of the ore, accords with what is known 
concerning those slaty rocks which contain much sulphuret of iron. 

Such strata become changed in their exposed or outcrop portions with the brown 
peroxide, and where circumstances have favored a deep and general decomposition, 
we find nests and seams of the peroxide associated with masses of the rock in all 
the intervening stages of chemical change. Among those older metamorphic mica¬ 
ceous and talcose schists which are sufficiently pyritous, these conditions are as fre¬ 
quent as among the slates, shales, and limestones of the Appalachian Palaeozoic for¬ 
mations. The separation of the peroxide of iron from the other materials of the 
disintegrated slate, is sometimes so complete as to leave a white earthy residuum of 
finely-subdivided particles, having the character of a pure silicious clay. This 
occupies the interstices between the nodules of ore, and is common in the interior 
of the hollow masses. So entire a separation of the oxide of iron from the earthy 
substances as this clay manifests, must be attributed to some further action than the 
mere transporting power of the percolating waters. It seems to imply the opera¬ 
tion of a segregating force among the particles identical in chemical nature, in obe¬ 
dience to which the atoms of oxide of iron have detached themselves Irom the 
other matter, and concentrated themselves around particular centres, as in other 
cases of nodular concretion. 

The peroxide of iron is very slightly, if at all, soluble in pure water, but is dis¬ 
solved to a certain extent by water impregnated with carbonic acid. The super¬ 
ficial waters containing a portion of this acid, derived Irom the atmosphere, through 
which they have all fallen in the form of rain and snow, are capable of slowly con¬ 
veying the peroxide in a state of solution from the surface to the deeper parts of 


570 


PART II.-DIVISION IT. 


the mass, where, by the gradual escape of the carbonic acid, the peroxide has be¬ 
come deposited. In the decomposition of the common sulphuret of iron, such as is 
found in pyritous slates, the sulphate of iron formed is very soluble; and this, per¬ 
vading the surrounding mass, has gradually given up its oxide of iron by a decom¬ 
position promoted by the presence of earthy and especially of calcareous matter. 

Respecting the origin of the Auroral limestone ores, there appears to be no ne¬ 
cessity for referring to any other agencies than those alluded to in treating of the 
history of the ores of the Primal series. Waters impregnated with salts of iron 
readily deposit the peroxide when in contact with carbonate of lime, and we might 
therefore look for deposits of the ore in situations favorable to the accumulation of 
the debris of ferruginous slates, and to the infiltration of waters charged with sul¬ 
phate of iron derived from the decomposition of the sulphuret contained in such 
slates. Many of the layers of limestone, especially those of a slaty structure, contain 
much sulphuret of iron, and the great mass of the Matinal limestone formation in¬ 
cludes a large amount of but slightly calcareous slates, more or less pyritous in their 
composition. 

Among the circumstances which usually indicate an abundance of the limestone 
ore beneath the soil, it should be mentioned that one of the most essential is a con¬ 
siderable thickness in the deposit of ferruginous loam, clay, or other earthy matter, 
resting on the strata. This will, of course, be marked by a corresponding evenness 
of the surface ; for where the beds of limestone are naked of soil in many places, 
the covering of earth, which must contain the ore, can nowhere be deep. Another 
very necessary condition is, that the earth overlying the rocks should have a large 
amount of the oxide of iron diffused in it. This will show itself by a characteristic 
bright yellow or clear brown color It must be observed, however, that the exist¬ 
ence of a large quantity of oxide of iron in the deeper part of the soil will very fre¬ 
quently not be perceptible in the color of the surface of the ground—the ore being 
confined to the lower portions of the mass—so that much good ore-ground is often 
neglected from want of perseverance in digging. 

The iron ores of the Matinal slates are obviously traceable to sources similar to 
those of the ores of the Primal slates and Auroral limestone. In the Matinal slate 
ores, the proportion of oxide of’manganese is often very great, and not unfrequently 
the ore passes in neighboring beds into nearly a pure oxide of manganese. Indeed, 
it is chiefly in the upper part of the Matinal slates, and in the Primal slates, that 
this latter mineral is met with in deposits of sufficient extent to be valuable. The 
olive-colored layers of argillaceous and sandy slate, forming a chief part of the 
Matinal newer slate, owe their color in great part to the large amount of protoxide 
of manganese which they contain. In the disintegration of the rock this is dis¬ 
solved, and being converted into peroxide by exposure to the atmosphere, is de¬ 
posited in irregular layers or concretions in situations favorable to its accumula¬ 
tion. [Mr. Rogers continues, referring to his own book,] 

Having in Vol. I. page 263, expressed a hope of being able, before the completion 
of this work, to present some more recently collected details of the Surface Iron 
Ores of the Kittatinny Valley, I here introduce the results of observations since 
made respecting the chief mines between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. 

Of the District between the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers.— Goetz 
Mine. —This is an old and extensive pit, and the only one from which ore is regu¬ 
larly obtained in the district northeast of the Lehigh river. It is situated within 
the valley of limestone, four miles north of Bethlehem. The excavation, which has 
eached a depth of nearly 60 feet, extends over two-thirds of an acre. The ore is 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


571 


chiefly a bright red hematite or hydrated sesquioxide E. Pennsylvania, 
of iron, the origin of which is clearly betrayed by 

numerous large masses of silicious rock found in the mine. These masses closely 
resemble the ore externally, and are, indeed, 'partially converted for some dis¬ 
tance beneath the surface. In one part of the mine the rock was found some¬ 
what regularly bedded over a mass of ore and clay, but it has been cut away 
to reach the materials beneath. In its texture it is a rather coarse sandstone 
of limestone-blue color, and evidently contains lime. It may be termed a very 
sandy limestone or calcareous sandstone. The bed of ore at present mined 
underlies a thick mass of light-blue and ferruginous-brown clays. Its dip, which is 
flat near the surface, steepens to 45°, and again turns nearly horizontal at the floor 
of the mine. It crops out towards the northwest. In thickness the bed varies from 
a few feet up to 15 feet. In the southeast parts of the mine no ore is at present 
excavated, and rubbish has obscured the bedding, if it has any. The clays contain 
disseminated masses, which may be separated from impurities by washing. The 
nearest rock exposures are of limestone, dipping southeast at a high angle. The 
yield of the mine does not exceed 4,000 tons per annum. 

Of the District between the Lehigh and Schuylkill Rivers.— Beisel's Ore- 
Mine is situated on the Catasaqua and Foglesville Railroad, five miles from Cata- 
saqua. It is an open pit of red hematitic ore, lying closely adjacent to a ridge of 
limestone which dips nearly vertically southeast The ore is irregularly deposited, 
not in any stratified bed, but in nests or bunches, and cannot be traced to any con¬ 
siderable distance from the mine. The pit, which is 50 feet deep, is wrought for the 
Lehigh Valley furnace, the ore being raised by an inclined plane and horse-power. 
A fourth of a mile southeast of the mine rises a conspicuous ridge of calcareous 
slate, and at the foot of this is the 

Trexell Ore-Mine , wrought by the Crane Iron Company. The ore is raised by 
steam-power, from a shaft sunk 60 to 70 feet. It is very irregularly disseminated 
through clay and earth, but little lump ore being found. All the material raised 
from the pit requires washing, and the ore is not very abundant. The yield of the 
mine is 2,000 tons per annum. In neither this nor the preceding mine has the 
rock-floor been reached. 

Ritter's Bank is at the foot of the limestone ridge, in the prolongation of Beisel’s 
ore-deposit, and but a few hundred yards distant. It is but recently opened, and 
the mine is small In character and mode of deposit it in all respects resembles 
Beisel’s. The ore is smelted at the Lehigh Valley furnace. 

The Guth Mine has been wrought for many years, and is now leased to the Crane 
Iron Company. It is situated on the west side of the prolongation of the limestone 
ridge which passes Beisel’s and Ritter’s mines. This is apparently a monoelinal 
ridge of limestone, dipping steeply southeast. The ore at the Guth mine occupies 
a narrow trough which has been carved 
out of the limestone, as shown in the an¬ 
nexed cut. At its east outcrop the ore 
was 20 to 30 feet thick, and inclined 75° 
west. It rests upon clay and sandy de¬ 
bris, and is overlaid by black clay, con¬ 
taining a large quantity of sulphuret of 
iron. This is capped by a tough white clay, which, when wet, assumes a semi-fluid 
condition, and soon covers the freshly-cut face of the mine. The insecure charac¬ 
ter of such a roof has prevented the mining of the ore where the increasing thick- 


Ore Ore Limestone 





572 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


ness of the covering makes it too expensive to remove it from the ore. Within 8C 
feet of the surface the ore-bed basins, but is somewhat thinner, and rises to the sur¬ 
face upon an east dip, within 200 feet of its east outcrop. On this side the ore has 
not been extensively wrought. The basin rises out within 100 feet northeast from 
the pit, and the ore cannot be traced farther in that direction. In the main pit the 
ore is a velvety brown and black hematite, changing to red near the outcrop at the 
northeast end of the mine. Southwest of this pit there are two others, within a 
few hundred feet. In the first of these a shaft, sunk to the depth of 8ft feet, passed 
perpendicularly through 40 to 45 feet of dark-brown and black crumbly ore, dipping 
steeply northwest. Between this mass and that in the preceding pit the connection 
has not been traced, the thickness of the ore deposit having greatly dwindled in the 
interval. The third opening does not merit attention; it was abandoned because of 
scarcity of ore. The yield of these mines is about 5,000 tons per annum. 

Kern db Albright's and Hoffman's Mines , closely adjacent to one another, are 
situated half a mile southeast of Siegerville, and a fourth of a mile from Jordan 
creek. The bedding of the ore in the former pit dips northwest 20°, and rises upon 
the opposite dip in Hoffman’s Mine. The two outcrops are about 500 feet asunder. 
In neither of these openings has the bottom of the ore been reached, though from 
20 to 25 feet in thickness have been wrought. The ore is a brown oxide, quite 

regularly stratified ; but 
the floor of the mines 
being covered by water, 
it could not be critically 

examined. It is capped 
Kern and Albright’s and Hoffman’s Mines, near Siegerville. j ^ 7 ^ ) ] ac } i c ] a y richly im¬ 

pregnated with sulphuret 

of iron, which is overlaid by white and variegated clays and earth. Between the 
two mines the ore is wrought by drifts and gangways in various directions. As is 
usual at the larger mines, the ore from both of these pits is raised by steam-power 
up an inclined plane. Hoffman’s mine, wrought for the Allentown furnaces, was 
not in operation at the date of our visit. Kern & Albright’s, leased by the Crane 
Iron Company, yields from 9,000 to 10,000 tons per annum. From these mines the 
surface slopes gently southeast towards the Jordan, and is deficient in rock expo¬ 
sures ; on the northwest, however, we find the limestone dipping southeast beneath 
the ore of the Hoffman pit. 

At Siegerville an ore-pit was opened some ten years ago by Mr. Sieger, and has 
been wrought by several iron companies, but is now abandoned. There is evidently 
a large body of valuable ore at this point, but the dilapidated condition of the mine 
prevented an inspection of its bedding or thickness. The dip is said to be north¬ 
west, and 68 feet depth of mining did not reach any rock-floor. The excavation 
extends over one-third of an acre. 

Xander's old bank, the property of the Crane Iron Company, is one-third of a 
mile northeast of Siegerville. This mine has not been w rought for six years, and is 
now in ruins. The ore, which is of the usual dark-brow r n hematitic variety, formed 
a bed dipping northwest, of a thickness varying from 12 to 20 feet. It was over¬ 
laid and underlaid by silicious pebbles. The position of this mine is near the 
boundary of the Auroral limestone, and the overlying Matinal slates, although these 
rocks are not found in situ in the vicinity of the mine. 

Jos. Balliot's Mine and Mickle's Mine , separated from each other by the road¬ 
way, are situated three miles northeast of Siegerville, and within one-fourth of a 





BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


573 


mile of a range of hills formed of the Matinal slates. E. Pennsylvania. 
In the former and larger pit the ore is almost exclu¬ 
sively of the brown variety ; in the latter it is of a bright-red color, and more 
crumbly character. The bottom of the deposit has not been reached. The bedding 
of the ore is horizontal. Beneath the upper stratum of brown ore in Balliot’s 
pit reposes a band of black clay containing occasional masses of brown ore. These 
mines are very wet. 

Stephen Balliot's and Jeter's Mine (formerly Shierey's) at Ironton, one-fourth of 
a mile northwest of Jos. Balliot’s, is a large excavation. From it the surface slopes 
gently south towards Copley creek ; within a quarter of a mile northwest the bound¬ 
ary of the Matinal slate ranges along the conspicuous ridge above mentioned. This, 
as well as the other mines in the neighborhood, seems therefore to lie among the 
alternating slate and limestone strata of the two formations. The gently rounded 
surface of the hills, and the entire absence of rock exposures, make it impossible to 
say under what precise conditions the ore has been deposited, with relation to the 
character and inclination of the subjacent strata. The nearest exhibition of rock 
displays limestone dipping northwest, towards the slate range, at a moderately high 
angle. The ore of this mine is of the usual brown hematitic variety, and is fre¬ 
quently quarried out in large masses ; over the more solid body of the brown ore 
there is usually about 10 feet thickness of a more cellular honeycomb ore. The ex¬ 
treme depth of the pit is 50 feet, and ore has been mined throughout the distance. 
The floor of the deposit was not reached by a well sunk 16 feet from the deepest 
part of the mine. In a neighboring smaller pit, belonging to Mr. Balliot, both 
brown and red ore are obtained, though from different parts of the mine. The 
brown ore has a bedding which inclines 45° southeast. The ore deposit at these 
mines is evidently a most extensive and valuable ore ; but, as at present wrought, 
the annual yield does not exceed 4,000 tons. Between it and Ritter’s pit, a fourth 
of a mile farther northeast along the same range, ore may be traced on the surface, 
and has been proved at several points. The continuity of the deposit between the 
two may perhaps be interfered with by a gentle rise prolonged from a knoll of lime¬ 
stone. 

Ritter's Mine , leased by the Crane Iron Company, displays a fine body of brown 
hematite ore, varying from 30 to 40 feet in thickness, except at the outcrop, where 
the deposit is 12 feet thick. The dip is northwest, undulating at an average angle 
of 30°. The floor is of clay. Over the good ore the black clay is found, capped as 
usual by white clay and surface materials. The depth of the pit is 45 feet, and its 
yield 6,000 tons per annum. The limestone forming the lower slope of the slate 
hill dips southeast towards the mine. 

The slate ridge which forms the boundary of the valley of the Auroral limestone 
on the northwest ranges southwest from the vicinity we have last described, near 
the village of Foglesville in Upper Macungy township of Lehigh county. Two miles 
southwest of Foglesville it deflects south, and then northeast for a mile as a spur, which 
courses southwest as the general boundary of the limestone. The little cove of 
limestone thus inclosed is the seat of several rich deposits of hematite ore, which 
are extensively mined. 

Sclough's Mine is situated one and a quarter miles south of Foglesville, at the 
northeast end of the slate ridge to which we have just adverted. East and south 
of it the soil is all of limestone origin. The mine, though quite small, being re¬ 
cently opened, is interesting, as showing the hematite ore in several stages of de¬ 
velopment. At the pit the ore is a compact rocky brown and black hematite, 


574 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


graduating into a more rotten brown ore and ferruginous clay. In the trial shafts 
sunk west of the mine, the ore became more and more slaty, receding from the 
main body, and assumed the character of a rotten ferruginous slate quite valueless 
as an ore. The bedding of the ore has a gentle southeast inclination. The limited 
explorations that have been made do not warrant any judgment as to the extent or 
depth of the deposit. In the well sunk for water near the pit to a depth of 64 feet, 
black carbonaceous slaty limestone was encountered 36 feet beneath the surface, 
and continued to the bottom. 

Udine's Pit is a small excavation three-fourths of a mile southwest of Foglesville. 
It is now abandoned and in ruins. The ore is quite slaty in character, and appa¬ 
rently not abundant. 

Miller's Mine is in the limestone cove southwest of Foglesville. Like all the 
others, it is an open pit, from which the ore is raised by a slope plane and steam- 
engine. Its depth is 35 or 40 feet, extending over half an acre. There is a cover¬ 
ing of from 5 to 25 feet of slaty debris over the irregularly-stratified ore. The 
bedding of the latter dips at a moderate angle southeast, but in that direction the 
ore rises to the surface again 100 yards distant, and was formerly wrought at the 
outcrop. As the bed sinks from the surface along the dip. the ore becomes more 
and more solid; but at places in the mine it is replaced by bodies of clay. A well 
sunk from the bottom of the pit to a depth of 18 feet, proved ore throughout that 
distance, though becoming lean at the bottom. The yield of this mine is about 
2,000 tons per annum. Leased by the Crane Iron Company. 

Laurish's Mine , a few hundred yards west of Miller’s, is a small excavation not 
now wrought. Many fragments of the ore look not unlike a merely ferruginous 
slate externally, but w'hen broken exhibit a close-grained brown hematite. The 
mine has been wrought for the Allentown furnaces. 

Lichtenwalder's is an old pit lying close to the ridge of slate which bounds the cove 
on the west, and one-fourth of a mile from the last mine. The extreme depth of 
the pit is 55 feet. In some places the ore, all of which is brown hematite, cavern¬ 
ous and velvety, is 40 feet beneath the surface, and at others it approaches and even 
outcrops upon it. There is no apparent or regular dip in the bedding of the ore, 
but the mass has a general inclination southeast. In parts of the mine white clay 
overlies the ore ; in other parts surface materials are intermixed with it, in which 
cases washing is resorted to. The solid and softer ores are irregularly intermingled. 
From the deepest part of the mine, a well reached the clay bottom of the deposit 
at a depth of 14 feet. Yield 3,000 tons per annum. Ore delivered to the Crane 
Iron Company. 

It is worthy of remark that in all the hematite ore pits hitherto described, fre¬ 
quent cavernous, amorphous masses of flint rock are found disseminated, chiefly 
among the clays and softer ores. We also notice in the undecomposed calcareous 
slates which occupy the ridges bordering the ore districts, numerous crystals of 
sulphuret of iron. 

Breinig's Mine is an old pit, now but little worked, on the southwest prolongation 
of the slate range from Sclough’s Mine, two miles northwest of Breinigsville. There 
is no appearance of any stratification in the ore, but it is disseminated through 
ferruginous earth, which is washed, and the ore picked out. The mine is in con¬ 
fusion. 

Two miles northeast of Trexlerstown are the mines of Gachenbach and others, 
formerly known as Shoemaker's Mine. There are several pits upon the same great 
body of ore, which dips rapidly (45°) towards the southeast. The ore bed has a 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


575 


thickness of 42 feet at the pit,, including the inter- E. Pennsylvania, 
stratified clays. It is exclusively red hematite, becoming 

harder and more rock-like as it gains cover. At the main pit, from which ore is 
now raised, it has a covering of 25 feet of surface-earth and clay. This pit is 50 
feet deep, but ore has been proved 24 feet below the level of the m ne resting 
upon a cavernous limestone. All the limestone near the mine dips southeast. 
There is no appearance of slate. Yield 2,500 tons per annum. 

Wicker?8 Mine is situated one mile east-southeast of Texas, in Lower Macungy 
township, and about two miles from the range of the South mountains. The soil is 
underlaid by limestone, and the ore is obtained from shallow pits, and by stripping 
the surface. It is so mixed with clay and earth as to require washing to separate 
it from impurities. The ore, which is a rich brown and black hematite, is invariably 
found in small angular or formless fragments, and sometimes as hollow geodes. 
Occasional fragments of ferruginous slate and slaty ore betray its slaty origin, and 
the presumption is that the slate from which it was derived was interstratitied with 
limestone. The locality is not now wrought, but it has yielded 2,000 tons of ore. 
A few hundred feet distant is a much deeper and more extensive deposit at Gideon 
Andreas' Mine. The pits have reached a depth of 20 feet, extending over one-third 
of an acre. Occasional masses of rich brown hematite are found, but the chief part 
of the ore is intermixed with ferruginous clays, which are washed. There is no 
appreciable or regular bedding of the ore. The precise yield of the mine we did 
not ascertain, but it probably amounts to 3,000 tons a year. In the same immediate 
neighborhood are Yobst's , Christian Andreas' and Weygandt's open-pit mines. In 
all of these the ore is washed from ferruginous earth, with which it is so intimately 
associated that the uninitiated eye would fail to detect its presence. The yield 
from the washing is about one-fourth or one-fifth part ore. 

Schmoyer's and Rheinhart's Mines are three-fourths of a mile northeast of those 
last mentioned. In the first of these there is no regularity in the bedding of the 
ore, and all the materials derived from the mine undergo washing. In Rheinhart’s 
pit the ore deposit is embraced in an undulating belt of 18 feet. In the wells 
sunk for water to wash these ores, limestone is invariably encountered at a con¬ 
siderable depth, but its dip we were unable to ascertain. The Schmoyer mine 
yields about 1,000 tons per annum, delivered to the Crane iron furnaces. The pro¬ 
duct of Rheinhart’s pit, about equal in amount, is smelted at the Allentown fur¬ 
naces. Near by is an old mine, now but little wrought, known as Mark's or White- 
ley's. The somewhat undulating deposit is 30 feet thick and uniformly bedded. 

Sigler's Mine , two miles north-northwest of Mertztown, is situated near the base 
of a slate ridge which projects into the limestone valley from the great slate range 
beyond. The mine has been wrought many years. The stratification ot the ore is 
very confused and irregular, though there are some evidences of a general southeast 
dip. In parts of the mine the masses of ore are found imbedded in clays, and are fre¬ 
quently so intersected by veins of quartz as to be rejected. The present yield 
does not exceed 1,000 tons per annum. There are several recently-opened small 
pits in the same neighborhood, but they furnish nothing worthy of especial remark. 
In some of them the ore is brown hematite, in others red. 

In the vicinity of Kline’s store, and elsewhere along a narrow belt ranging with 
the valley, ore has been proved by surface shafts and small pits at numerous points. 
All of the ore derived from these openings is of the silicious brown variety, in vari¬ 
ous degrees of purity. Many specimens ap pear rather as masses of rotten, ferru¬ 
ginous, and perhaps calcareous sandstone. These masses are generally large and 


576 


PART n.-DIVISION II. 


cavernous, containing a yellow calcareous clay within. The excavations are toe 
limited and superficial to afford us any insight into the structural features of the 
limestone strata beneath these deposits. 

Trexler\ s' Mine is one mile southeast of Breinigsville. It is but recently opened, 
and the excavation has not proceeded far, but fine large masses of brown and 
red hematite are found plenteously scattered through the rich ferruginous earth, 
which is washed to obtain the smaller fragments. The disintegration of the under¬ 
lying rock has been deep, as is proved by a well 80 feet in depth, wherein no solid 
rock was encountered. The mine is upon the top of a broad undulating hill. The 
limestone of the neighborhood dips southeast. East of Trexlerstown, on the back 
of a broad ridge, and within a quarter of a mile, are five ore pits; three of these 
are the property of Mr. S. Albright, one belongs to Mr. Schmoyer, and one to Mr. 
Yoder. The ore is obtained by stripping and washing the surface earth. It is a 
brown hematite in small fragments. The deposit is underlaid by limestone, but the 
rock does not crop out at the surface, nor have the excavations penetrated to it. 
The ore from these mines, and from Trexler’s pit, is delivered to the Thomas iron 
furnaces at Hokendaqua. On Samuel Albright’s land, one mile southwest of Trex¬ 
lerstown, a similar deposit to those above mentioned is found. None of the ore 
deposits last referred to furnish any local evidences of their origin. 

The Saucun Mines , the most extensively wrought for ore in the district now 
under consideration, are situated three miles southwest of Hellertown, on the county 
line of Lehigh and Northampton, near the Saucon creek. They are within the 
limestone valley of the Saucon, which is bordered by the ridges of the South 
Mountains, known as the Lehigh Hills. These mines, the property of Messrs. Bahl 
and Gangware, consists of two pits, one a narrow excavation 250 feet long and 30 
feet deep, the other a somewhat circular and shallow pit. In both mines red hema¬ 
tite ore is found imtermixed with the brown, the former in irregular nodules, the 
latter stratified, particularly in the long pit known as Bahl’s. The two varieties are 
found in about equal proportions in this pit, the former usually scattered through 
blood-red and pink clays, the latter alternating with many-colored clays, from grey 
to dark brown. Most of the ore obtained from Gangware’s (circular) pit is of the 
red hematite variety, but it is probable the brown ore will be found abundant 
when the excavation has penetrated deeper. There is no uniformity in the bedding 
of the ore in this pit, whereas in Bahl’s the stratification has a quite regular south¬ 
east inclination. A shaft sunk in Bahl’s pit to a depth of 60 feet did not reach the 
bottom of the ore deposit, but in other places within a hundred yards, mine shafts 
from 40 to 70 feet deep encountered nothing but clay. It would therefore appear 
to be a purely local deposit or nest of ore, in which the materials have been laid 
down with some regularity. Northwest of Bahl’s mine, within 200 yards, limestone 
crops out, and dips gently towards the mine. One or two smaller excavations have 
been made within a hundred yards southeast of Gangware’s, but they have not led 
to any very promising results. In one a small amount of dull brown ore was found, 
in the other nothing but sand and pebbles, and masses of undecomposed sandv 
rock. In Bahl’s and Gangware’s pits, fragments of rock are found undecomposed, 
chiefly a cherty material of greyish-blue color and flinty texture. In the latter pit 
a large amount of this is found, but it was too nearly covered to admit of any con¬ 
clusion respecting its true place or its dip. The yield of these mines is 15,000 tons 
per annum. The ore is delivered to the Thomas iron works. 

Moselem Mine, Berks county, 6 miles west-southAvest of Kutztown. At this locality 
there are two pits, an eastern and a western, 200 yards asunder, situated in a nar- 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


577 


now valley between a conspicuous slate-ridge Bliddle Pennsylvania, 
and a lower limestone hill, in both of which 

the dip is northwest, the limestone passing under the slate. The east mine 
is wrought chiefly for the supply of the furnaces of Seyfert, M‘Manus & Co., at 
Reading. The surface excavation is not large, and the ore is found in confused and 
irregular bunches of a few inches thickness up to twenty feet; it is intermixed with 
clay and earth. The ore is now obtained, in great measure, from a series of gang¬ 
ways diverging from a shaft at a depth of 120 feet. The ore is a brown compact 
hematite of the average quality, in lumps large and small. The annual yield of the 
mine is 10,000 tons of ore, raised at a cost of $1 50 per ton. The west mine is exclu* 
sively an open pit. excavated 80 feet deep over half an acre. The ore is delivered to 
the Leesport furnaces, nine miles above Reading. As at the former mine, the ore 
is found in irregular nests, and requires to be excavated and washed before it is fit 
for the furnaces. Yield 12,000 tons per annum; cost of mining$1 30 per ton under 
ordinary circumstances. In both of these mines, but especially the latter, many 
fragments of slate and cherty limestone are found only partially converted into ore. 

Jefferson Ore-kank, five miles northwest of Reading, worked by Eckert and 
Brother. This locality of brown hematitic ore is situated or the east side of a hill 
of the Matinal slate formation, which occupies a position within the general valley 
of the Auroral limestone. The ore-deposit lies within 300 yards of a narrow dyke 
of trap, which ranges northeast and southwest through a considerable distance. 
The general bedding of the mass dips west, or under the hill, at an angle of 30°. 
In thickness it varies from 2J to 15 feet, and is underlaid at the outcrop by about 
10 feet of clay, beneath which the limestone is in place. In other parts of the 
mine the ore is in immediate contact with the rugged floor of outcropping lime¬ 
stone. The pit is an open cut, stripping the surface materials from the ore stra¬ 
tum. The extreme depth of the mine is 63 feet, and the ore has been mined along 
the outcrop for 150 yards. A large amount of ore has been obtained in the lower 
ground, the surface materials of which are washed. Black oxide of manganese is 
found as a thin stratum, sometimes six inches thick in the clay, one and a half feet 
above the ore. Yield of ore per annum about 3,000 tons. 

West of the Susquehanna 2J- miles from the Harrisburg 
bridge Gorgas’s large ore bank shows clay and bunches of irregu¬ 
lar veins dipping irregularly with the underlying limestone II. 
The Carlisle ironworks get ore along the northern slope and at 
the base of the Potsdam (primal) sandstone ridges I. near the 
junction. While the mountain ore is cold-short from manga¬ 
nese the limestone or pipe ore is a little red-short from sulphur, 
and a mixture makes neutral or forge iron. The ore from the 
mountain is both compact and cellular. The valley or limestone 
ore bed two miles north-northwest of the works is a layer ot pipe 
ore 8 feet thick. Other deposits occur along the Hanover road 
and towards Carlisle. One Holly furnace bank is four miles 
south of Carlisle; another Cumberland furnace bank lies be¬ 
tween the mountain and the creek at Peffer’s, and yields a man- 
ganesian pipe ore ; ore is abundant along the foot of the moun- 


578 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


/ 


tain near the primal sandstone. The principal Cumberland fur¬ 
nace hanks lay three miles southwest of it near the foot of the 
mountain. A quarry 50 feet deep shows layers and bunches 
and scattered balls, thickest near the bottom. This ore was 
mixed with that of a bank (on limestone) two miles north of the 
furnace. Pond furnace at the head of Yellow Breeches creek 
smelted ore from the primal slates situated like the Chestnut hill 
ore. Mary Ann and Augusta furnaces, three miles west of the 
Pond close to the foot of the mountain three miles southeast of 
Shippensburg get ore from the Helm bank at the steep northeast 
dipping junction of the limestone and slate, and from the Clip- 
penger pipe ore bank in limestone. Wherever in the valley the 
ore is found in red clay between the outcrop irregularities of the 
limestone it is of a superior, stalactitic character. Whereas the 
ore from the lower junction of the limestone with the primal 
slates at the base of the mountain is only fit for foundry purposes 
unless mixed with pipe ore. The two Southampton furnaces four 
miles south of Shippensburg were' supplied with mountain ore 
from the Hill bank close by, cold-short above and honeycomb bet¬ 
ter ore underneath, making foundry iron with hot blast in the up¬ 
per furnace ; and with limestone ore from the Kressler and Bail- 
road banks one and four miles west. At Kressler’s old bank the 
nests and layers in soil and rotten slate dip with the lime¬ 
stone strata under and beside them. The Bailroad bank was 
abandoned on account of water and the running out of the ore 
which lay in bunches against a limestone ridge on the north. 
Three and a half miles from Shippensburg Pilgrim bank lies near 
the northern margin of the Limestone II (near the slates of III), 
and other deposits of good forge iron ore were wrought at the 
old Boxbury bank one and a half miles west of Shippensburg 
and elsewhere. A fine pipe ore, wagoned eight miles to Caledo¬ 
nia furnace, was got two miles southeast of Green village from 
bunches in strings dipping with and between two ridge outcrops 
of limestone. This furnace is supplied from a belt of ore ground 
over the lower junction of the Limestone II with the sandstone 
of I at the foot of the ridges facing the South mountains on the 
west. The Pond iron banks three miles from Caledonia works 
show the ore in slates between the limestone and sandstone, in 
nests and irregular layers in a ferruginous soil, much of it in 
hollow kidney balls. A little further south Montalto fur- 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


579 


Middle Pennsylvania. 


nace used to get a poor ore from 
just over tlie sandstone; and from 
the Hiefner bank a little further from the mountain, a crumbly, 
cold-short, very fusible ore, overlying limestone. West of the line 
of ore ground j ust mentioned is another of very cold-short pipe ore 
on a limestone ridge where limestone joins an intercalated bed 
of silicious slate and sandstone. Montalto furnace is near the foot 
of the outer sandstone ridge (TSTo. I Potsdam-Primal) and upon an 
extraordinary exhibition of the I + II ores which are everywhere 
to be detected at the foot of the South mountain from the Sus¬ 
quehanna to Maryland, but are here more than usually abund¬ 
ant along the same from the Pond Bank to a point two or three 
miles southwest of the furnace. The ore occurs in nests in the 
loose mountain soil, the lower parts of these great deposits being 
the purest, but none being very rich. In one of the deepest 
diggings limestone was struck, showing that the deposits are in¬ 
side the formation No. II. On the other hand the 11 +III ore is 
seen in the old Mount Pleasant furnace bank four miles west of 


Loudon, ranging along the west edge of the great valley, near 
the contact of the Limestone (II) and Slate (III)—an iridescent 
cold-short ore, and a better honeycomb ore, with a little pipe 
ore. It is obtained in abundance north of old Carrick furnace. 
A red-short arsenical ore was once got from a bank four miles 
northeast of Mercersburg on or near the anticlinal limestone 
(II) axis which parts the slate (HI). 1 

Carlisle furnace (E *70) gets its brown hematite from beds three miles south of 
Boiling Springs; Chestnut grove (E 69) from beds five miles north; Holly (E VI) 
six miles south of Carlisle and now torn down, used banks on its estates, one 300 
yards north, the other six miles south of the stack. Pine grove (E V2) 14 miles 
southwest of Carlisle has its own banks 500 yards distant, overlying limestone and 
covering 1,200 acres, 50 feet deep as worked and left a solid bottom. Pig pond 
(E 73) has beds one mile west. Cumberland (E 74) now torn down used the Peach- 
orchard bed three miles west, McCullough’s and Goodpart’s two miles northwest and 
Lee’s five miles north. Caledonia (E 75) has beds two miles south of the Baltimore- 
Chambersburg turnpike, four miles southwest of the stack and nine from Chambers- 
burg. Mount Alto (E 76) has its four banks of brown hematite within 300 yards 
southeast and mixes with it ^ ore from over the limestone two miles north-northeast. 2 

Carrick furnace (E 77) in the mountains northwest of Chambersburg uses fossil 
ore, but Valley (E 78) uses a cold-short brown hematite from a bed four miles north 
of it. Franklin furnace (E 79) used Beaver’s bank ore near Loudon, and also ore 
from a bank one and a half miles north of the stack. The Warren furnace (E 80) 
although in Pennsylvania, belongs topographically to Maryland and mixes its fossil 
ore with brown hematite from Baltimore and the Point of Rocks on the Potomac. J 


i Pinal Report, pp. 262-270. - Bulletin Araer. Iron Association. 1858. 3 Ibid. 


580 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Aii apparently III-f IV ore occurs in the Path Valley fault 
(west of Loudon and Cliambersburg) at the old banks of the old 
Mount Pleasant furnace; crushed slate and ore lie in the fault 
where the Sandstone IV is thrown down against the upper part 
of the Slate III (see Henderson’s section in Final Report, p. 
320). All the ore in Path valley is along this line of fault and 
perhaps derives in this case, as Henderson supposes, from the 
loose crushed ferruginous sandstone by mechanical precipitation 
against the impervious slate. But at the Garrick furnace bank, 
on the fault west of Fannetsburg, a row of sinkholes marks the 
line of fault and the ore has been caught in clay against the face 
of limestone. And while sometimes good exposures of the fault 
may be obtained without a sign of ore, the ore abounds along 
the fault for seven or eight miles west of Fannetsburg, in im¬ 
mense quantities. The large mass of clay above the ore is 
tough and black and full of sulj)huret of iron; the ore itself 
dijps with the limestone and is nearly 30 feet thick at the surface 
and thins to a wedge below. To the southwest the ore is in 
large angular masses through the clay and the southwest surface 
of the valley is much strewn with such by some inundating 
force. 4 It is evident from these facts that the ore is a decompo¬ 
sition from sulphuret of iron in a bed of slate lying between or 
upon limestone and suffering less and less from the action of the 
decomposing agent (the moisture of the air) the further it de¬ 
scends. It is probable therefore that the ore in old Mount Pleasant 
bank mentioned above came from some such ferruginous slate 
bed caught in the lips of the fault, and not from the sand-stone. 

In McConnellsburg Cove in the southeast part of Fulton 
county a fault sends down the Lower Silurian Limestone II 
northwest against Devonian Sandstone VIII. Hanover ore bank 
lies in the fault where the lower edge of the Slates III go down 
into the fault. 5 

In Blacklog anticlinal Lower Silurian slate (III) valley splits 
along the middle by a belt of limestone (II) no iron ore appears; 
but apparently in a fissure of one of its bounding mountains, on 
the summit of Blacklog, 4 miles southwest of Orbisonia a deposit 
of cellular hydrated peroxide, in stalactitic masses, in clay, in 
white sandstone (IV) was once dug for Rockhill furnace. 
Meadow gap shows traces of the same. 


* Final Report, vol. i. p. 322, 


6 Repeated on page 479 of Final Report. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


581 


In Kishicoquilis , Nittany, Morri- 

i ,i n i , ,i iuiucii© ir ©niisyivajiici. 

son and other valleys between the 

lower Juniata and tlie Alleghany mountain examined with 
great skill by Mr. McKinley and Dr. Jackson the brown hema¬ 
tites are distinctly traced to the ferruginous sandstone strata, 
harsh to the touch on the weathered surfaces, and covered with 
an ochreous soil, 6 intercalated in the lower silurian magnesian 
(auroral) limestone formation No. II, which forms the valley 
floor, and through which the Potsdam (primal) slates and sand¬ 
stones No. I never rise high enough to appear. It was the opin¬ 
ion of some of the gentlemen of the survey, Professor Frazer 
among others, and perhaps still is, that these deposits of iron ore 
come from the disintegration of the sometimes ferruginous sand¬ 
stones of IY in the hounding mountains. But this theory, how¬ 
ever supported by appearance, involves the errors of a diluvial 
theory or tertiary theory, and is otherwise set aside by the pre¬ 
sence of the same kind of deposits along the outcrop of the same 
limestones (No. II) on the south side of the great valley many 
miles across from the nearest outcrop of the sandstones No. IY. 
The formation is subdivided by Mr. Pogers in this region into 
three groups, the uppermost Matinal limestone, an upper Auroral 
fossiliferous (Black river, New York survey) group, and a lower 
Auroral nonfossil iferous, magnesian, group ; thus, descending: 

a. Matinal dark blue carboniferous limestone with 

Orthoceras pressure, Lingular trentonensis, Iso- 
telas gigas, alternating with light blue thin 
very fossiliferous beds, ..... 

b. Encrinal and coralline, thin bedded, . 

Blue, massive, fine, with coral cast-holes^ . 

Birdseye Limestone (N. Y.), Cytherina, blue, fine, 

Blue, thin, fossiliferous, sparry; coral cast-holes, 

c. Blue clay limestone and grey coralline magnesian, 


500 feet. 
30 “ 


20 
150 
400 
200 

Nonfossiliferous massive light blue magnesian, . 500 

Coralline light blue and dark grey—alternating, 1,000 
Slightly fossiliferous light blue limestone, . . 300 

Nonfossiliferous grey magnesian crystalline, . 1,500 
Nonfossiliferous light blue magnesian limestone, . 700 

Nonfoss. grey mag. crystalline, exposed for . 600 

• Total thickness of II exhibited about . 6,000 


a 


u 


u 


a 


a 


a 


u 


u 


« 


u 


u 


6 Rogers’s Final Report, vol. i. p. 470. 



582 


PART n. -DIVISION II. 


The slates of III (Utica and Hudson) are about 1,400 feet thick 
in Kishicoquiiis and 1,000 in Nittany valleys. 

Mr. Rogers says on page 479 Final Report 1858, that the ores 
u having generally no very close relation to the rocks beneath, 
their discovery is rather empirical.” Yet in the next sentence 
he excepts those of Kishicoquiiis valley where “the distribution 
is so dependent on the geological structure that its range can be 
determined with scientific accuracy. All the ore deposits hith¬ 
erto mined lie over the anticlinal lines of the strata, in the fis¬ 
sures produced by their abrupt bending at the time of their ori¬ 
ginal elevation.” These lines are four in number; in the prin¬ 
cipal one near and parallel to the base of Stone mountain the 
rocks are overturned to the northwest. Two shorter axes lie 
southeast of its southwest extremity, on the northwestern of 
which is situated Davis’s pipe ore bank, exhausted before 1838, 
having sent 800 tons of perpendicularly arranged stalactites to 
Greenwood furnace. A fourth axis, commencing three miles 
southwest of Brown’s gap becomes the main axis of the south¬ 
west end of the valley and holds Holliday’s bank, near the mill 
east of Greenwood; the limestones dip adversely on opposite 
walls of the quarry; fluor spar occurs here in small quantities, 
and is so far forth evidence of a volcanic origin of the iron, or 
supports so far the exhalation theory. The old ITall and Rawle 
bank is also exactly on the axis one mile southeast of Greenwood; 
long worked; ore sometimes in pure mass, and at 70 feet depth 
a solid bed of great thickness; stalactitic; irregular. Brook- 
land furnace bank a mile further along the axis. 7 If however 
the line of crust-break had anything more to do with the origi¬ 
nation of the ore tl)an the bringing to the surface the proper 
ferruginous strata and providing receptacles for the decomposing 
mud, or pools of tepid water in which the mud might collect to 
decompose, we ought to hear of a line of banks the whole length 
of all these four axes. And if hot springs were the prime opera¬ 
tors, why have they ceased to flow, and why do not the hot 
springs of Virginia deposit now brown hematite in mass ? It is 
much more probable that the deposits occur where certain layers 
originally charged with sulpliuret of iron (?) have been brought to 
the day along these anticlinal crevices and suffered decomposi¬ 
tion at their broken edges, a part of the precipitation being pre- 

Final Report, p. 479. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


583 


served to us m tlie wider, deeper ,,, _ 

, ,, „ , . / Middle Pennsylvania. 

and therefore worse drained portions 

of the crevices open to the air. In support of this view 
we have seen that in the McConnell’s cove no ore is found along 
the axis, but an impure clay iron stone is found scattered on the 
lower limestone; and the Hanover ore bank is found in the 
slates of HI. In the narrow anticlinal valleys of the Seven 
Mountains or the Buffalo mountains, Sugar valley etc. the 
lowest limestones of II are not brought up and therefore no 
great deposits of brown hematite have ever been discovered. 

Nippenose valley has never yielded brown hematite banks; 
its limestone surface is rough and its clays shallow. Mr. Rogers 
explains the absence by the gentleness of 'the dips and the con¬ 
sequent rarity of longitudinal fractures, but it can be explained 
better by another consequence, to wit, the suppression of the 
base of the formation (the true iron-bearing formation) beneath 
the surface. 

Sugar valley with its steep and even overturned dips 8 on the 
contrary brings up the base rocks of II and therefore has iron ore 
beds three miles west of Kleckner’s and elsewhere but of no 
great value, the surface being strewed with good brown ore and 
chert. Shafts sunk nearFriedly’sold furnace 30 feet deep struck 
rock at 15 and found no ore. 

Brush valley has yielded no ore of any consequence except as 
surface fragments. Although its rocks are 80° steep on the north¬ 
ern side, it is narrow and its anticlinal probably does not bring 
up the ferruginous layers because it has not been broken. 

Penn’s valley with its offshoot at the upper end, George’s 
valley, has gentle dips and therefore no iron ore deposits. 

Nittany valley into which Penn’s valley opens up southwest 
is from 2 to 5J- miles wide and therefore the lowest rocks of H 
have a fair surface held and form the range of “ Barrens ” desti¬ 
tute of water and containing vast accumulations of rich iron 
ore. Two miles east of Bellefonte they begin to form a central 
ridge or deeply grooved highland, beset with outcrops of impure 
limestone, and terminating 5 miles southeast of Millhall gap. The 
northern dips being as high as 70° where the anticlinal flexure 
is the strongest there is abundant room in so wide a valley for 
the upcoming of the lower layers M the lower silurian limestone 

8 See McKinley’s section on page 491 of Rogers’s Final Report, vol. i. 


584 


PART n. -DIVISION II. 


formatic n in tliis central ridge,—sandstones and silicious lime¬ 
stones, dipping G0° north 25° west opposite Millliall, and under 
them a line conchoidal pale blue sandstone, “ very persistent 
throughout this and all the neighboring Matinal valleys,” and 
of great thickness, a few of its beds being somewhat calcareous. 
Half a mile east of Salona it dips 5° north at the ore diggings. 3 
It is evident that with such a dip no anticlinal or emanation hy¬ 
pothesis is applicable to the explanation of the ore; this must 
originate from the rocks brought up to surface, and all the 
banks are stated by Jackson in the Final Report to be in prox¬ 
imity to the impure limestone beds called Curly-back, some at 
the south foot of the ridge and some on its broad summit. 1 The 
crest of the anticlinal seems to be absolutely horizontal three 
miles southwest of Salona. At the Washington ore banks 2-J 
miles across the barrens from the furnace, the ore and limestone 
dip 45° south, and further on stand vertical or overturned. In 
fact he recognizes in so many words the fact that “ there seems 
to be a fixed relation between the ore and the part of the forma¬ 
tion, or the character of the rocks lifted to the surface of the 
flexure, and between it and the ferruginous earth which itself is 
dependent on the extent of deposition during denudation.” The 
last part of this sentence seems to be an addition by Mr. Rogers, 
although there is no way to decide such a question, since Mr. 
Rogers indorses en masse as his own discoveries all the facts of 
the survey and therefore becomes responsible for all mistakes, 
as well as the innocent cause of the curious want of harmony and 
svmmetry which characterizes the Final Report. If the sugges¬ 
tion made above be correct, it shows how poorly the diluvial 
denudation theory of Mr. Rogers qualified him for appropri¬ 
ating the heterogeneous masses of observations made by the 
other members of the Pennsylvania state survey; for Dr. 
Jackson here saw only the natural drainage weathering of the 
exposed strata into pits where chemical changes deposited the 
ore; but Mr. Rogers sees the rush of the ocean down from the 
Alleghanies, and the worlds of sand and muddy debris that it 
left behind. It is a little singular that Mr. Rogers with this clear 
statement of Jackson’s in his possession could not apply it to 
the Great Yalley range of ore beds where it has so immense a 
sweep, and might have found so precise a geological determina- 

9 Jackson in the Final Report, page 495. 


1 Page 499. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


585 


tion. Perhaps the promised chapter 
on iron ores in the second volume of 


Middle Pennsylvania, 


the Final Report when it appears will explain the cause. 

The Salona banks showed cellular ore mixed with much sul- 
phuret of iron. The Washington banks opened at least as early 
as 1828, show two seams of pipe ore and a third of inferior 
quality dipping 10° with the silicious limestone curly-back. The 
Lamar and Beck banks continue the range. The old Harris 
bank near Jacksonville yielded in 1838 40 tons of good pipe ore 
per day, by a shaft 25 feet deep through white and yellow clay, 
the vein of ore pitching steeply north. A neighboring shaft 
went down 100 feet through clay to strike the ore, getting occa¬ 
sional stalactites 3 feet long; no limestone bottom; the situation 
w r as between two sharp anticlinals. John Beck’s shafts 50 feet 
deep through massive white-grained sandy limestone struck 
good pipe ore dipping 30° southeast. Harris’s shaft two miles 
northeast of Flecla furnace went down through red sand 8 feet 
and white clay 12 to line brown gravel ore lying on solid pipe 
ore dipping 45° north ; two drifts a hundred feet long were run 
horizontally in the line ore (in 1838?) The neighboring Ilecla 
bank had supplied two furnaces twelve years, in 1838, and was 
200 feet long by 40 deep, the pipe ore veins from 2 to 5 feet 
thick irregularly bedded in ferruginous loam, with occasional 
patches of red oxide, and an argillaceous oxide in alternate 
layers brown and yellow, while masses of black clay colored 
with vegetable matter were seen in the white clay. 3 McKin¬ 
ney’s bank opposite the Ilecla furnace yielded ore within 2 feet 
of the surface; one shaft went down through clay 3 feet, ore 22, 
white clay and sand 20 feet; some was brown oxide; some in 
oblong balls, filled with pure clay or water and lined with black 
shining oxide, of this there were 4 feet; the whole dipped north, 
apparently towards a synclinal. Curtis’s and Gatesburg banks 
towards Bellefonte, and Valentine’s on the hill back of the fur¬ 
nace southwest of Bellefonte yield pipe ore; the last between 
strata of sandy limestone in a cavity 16 feet wide by 60 long, 
lined with stalagmites, and reached by a blasted shafting 150 
feet deep. Lamborn’s bank sent inferior ore to Juliana furnace 
to mix with hollow ball ore from the Pond bank, on the barren 
ridge, 2£ miles southwest of Williams’s. Edmonson’s shaft 70 


3 Compare tlie Brandon lignite bed. 


586 


PART IT.-DIVISION II. 


feet ^eep near Williams’s on the north side of the barrens 
yielded pipe ore 6 to 8 feet thick between solid sandy limestone 
under loose rock, with 30 to 40 feet of red clay over all. Be¬ 
neath the ore, limestone strata inclosing veins of ore were fol¬ 
lowed vertically down at least 70 feet more. 4 

In 1858 Washington furnace (E 113) gets brown hematite pipe ore “ in a solid 
vein 10 feet thick ” from two banks one and three miles northwest of itself, four and 
six miles distant from Howard furnace and eight from Flemington.—Howard (E 
114) has mines three and five miles southeast, nests of limonite from 15 to 80 feet 
deep, usually 40 to 60, in basins on each side of the central ridge of the valley, 
which is two and a half miles wide. “ The veins of pipe ore accompany the lime¬ 
stone in inexhaustible quantities, but are often abandoned from following the lime¬ 
stone, while the brown hematite rarely interferes with it.”—Hecla furnace (E 115) 
in Logan gap gets brown hematite and pipe ore from every part of the central 
ridge \\ miles north of it, but the deposits are “irregular and unreliable, few of 
them lasting longer than a single blast of nine or ten months.”—Eagle furnace (E 
116) on the canal, gets pipe ore from the Central Barrens 3 miles southeast of 
Bellefonte.—Logan furnace (E 117) has “ nests ” of ore in the limestone 2) 2 miles east 
of it.—Rock furnace (E 118) gets its ore from pipe banks 8 miles on the road to 
and 1^ miles from Pine grove; 10 miles east of Path valley ; 9 miles north, in Bald 
Eagle valley (ore of Upper Silurian VI—not II); one mile east; and two or three 
others from half to three-quarter mile distant in Spring creek valley.—Centre fur¬ 
nace (E 119) banks are 3 miles northwest and 7 west; has pipe ore 1 mile north.— 
Juliana furnace (E 120) gets cold-short Lambenn bank ore from 3 miles south on Buf¬ 
falo run, and red-short River hill bank ore from 4^ miles south in the barrens.—Mar¬ 
tha furnace (E 121) is said to use carbonate ore from mines 4 to 5 miles southeast 
of the furnace.—Hannah furnace, stopped in 1851, had banks 3, 4 and 5 miles east- 
southeast and 6 miles east along the south foot of the Bald Eagle mountain, that is 
between II and III, and in Warrior Mark valley 3 miles south-southeast (these di¬ 
rections are undoubtedly wrongly given).—Monroe furnace (E 122) does not use 
brown hematite.—Huntingdon furnace (E 123) gets hers from 1£ and 4 miles north, 
1, li and If miles north of west, and 4 miles northeast; “ many of the banks could 
be opened and worked if necessary.”—Pennsylvania furnace (E 124) uses a bank a 
mile northeast of it.—Bald Eagle (E 132) uses a bank 2f miles southeast.—Etna 
furnace (E 133) has ore lands 2 to 4 miles west of it, and mixes fossil ore from an 
opening 5 to 7 miles distant.—Elizabeth furnace (E 134) in Logan’s valley has a 
bank one mile south in a limestone cove at the northeast foot of a lime ridge the 
top of which is sandstone, and ore and limestone stand vertical, the ore 3 to 30 
feet wide, opened 100 yards long and 100 feet deep. Here we have evidence of 
the limestone genesis of the brown hematite, but the rocks are here Upper not 
Lower Silurian ; the hill extends southwest to Baker’s great ore bank, which feeds 
Alleghany furnace (E 136) 1$ miles south of Altoona. This bank is one of the 
finest in the country, between one and two hundred yards long and 100 feet 
deep, cut out of the south side of an Upper Silurian limestone ridge (No. VI) 
facing the Bald Eagle mountain, four miles northeast of the furnace (three miles 
from Altoona) and nearly opposite Blair furnace which sometimes mixes its ore 
with its own fossil ore. The irregular nest structure of the deposits may be 


4 Final Report, vol. i. p. 500. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


587 


here well studied; no appearance of vertical IVEiddle Pennsylvania, 
stratification, or of any other, except an obscure 

horizontal one; but a sudden termination of the ore sidewise which lends 
probability in this instance to the theory of thermal spring deposit. It is 
however connected as in all other instances with limestone and loose calciferous 
sand rock, the disintegration of which has set free the brown ore and afforded 
the accompanying sands and clays. (Bull. A. I. Ass. 1857.) 

On the Upper Juniata tlie lowest (Auroral) Lower Silurian 
No. II limestones occupy the barren ridge centre of the valley, a 
range of sandhills strewn with sandstones, dark grey sandy lime¬ 
stones, iron stones, iron ore and rugged cellular quartz ; and 
southeast of Stormstown or Walkersville the anticlinal brings 
up the very floor of the Palgeozoic system No. I, the Potsdam 
or Primal Sandstone. Here then come up the very rocks which 
follow the north foot of the South mountain, and therefore the 
brown hematite deposits appear with them likewise. The sand¬ 
stone lias been driven up by the fracture of the arch as it passes 
Birmingham and the upward slip of its western side, bringing up 
the top sandstones of I against the bottom slates of III. (Mati- 
nal black slates of Rogers.) 

Canoe valley (Nittany valley continued soutliwestward) con 
tinues its “ barrens ” across the Juniata, into Morrison’s cove, 
where they form a double ridge with the ore exhibited in the 
northern ridge overturned. In this cove Springfield furnace 
(E 143) has its brown ore banks two miles southeast.—Bloomfield 
furnace (E 145) has a bank a mile east with 40 per cent ore from 
10 to 40 feet thick, costing 75 cents to raise.—Sarah furnace 
(E 145) has “ more than a hundred banks, but only wrought in 
two places, both 3-J- miles east, at Bloomfield furnace.” It mixes 
a little fossil ore from three-quarters of a mile southeast.—Jack* 
son describes the ore deposit of brown hematite around and 
southwest of Williamsburg on the Juniata, as extraordinarily 
fine. (Bulletin Amer. I. Ass. 1857.) 

Milliken’s Cove has no iron ore deposits, because only the 
top rocks of II (Matinal limestone) are exposed here and there 
along the anticlinal, which however has vertical dips on one 
side. 6 


In Harford county, Maryland, large deposits of brown 
hematite iron ore on Hope’s land at the head of Howard’s run, 


6 F. R., p. 511. 



588 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


supply La Grange furnace on Deer creek. The iron made is of 
superior quality, and used for gun-barrels. They seem to over- 
lie limestone at a considerable depth.® The La Grange Iron 
works, in Harford county Maryland, get their brown hematite, 
yielding 50 per cent and making good bar iron, from Hope’s 
and other banks in the upper part of the county. 7 

The Point of Rocks brown hematite ore beds, and those 
near Sykesville, have been discussed above, pages 444, 445, in 
their connection witli the primary ore veins. 

In Washington county, Maryland, the beds of brown hema¬ 
tite formerly fed three furnaces, of which but one (Antietam) 
remained in operation in 1840, supplied from the deposits of the 
ore in Virginia six miles above Harper’s Ferry, and in Maryland 
two miles above the Ferry. 0 

In Frederick county, Maryland, within a mile of Frederick- 
ton, there is a great sand quarry, where the inhabitants procure 
their building sand. It is a mass of calcareous sand lying ap¬ 
parently on a water-worn surface of the blue limestone of the 
valley, but when carefully examined at proper spots, is seen to 
pass so gradually into a compact calcareous sandstone or sandy 
limestone that no doubt can remain as to its being a disintegra¬ 
tion of the rock through the slow lapse of time by chemical re¬ 
agents. Within it are small veins or seams of brown hematite 
ore, no doubt in their original position before the reduction of 
the rock to sand. 9 

The Catoctin furnace north of Frederickton Maryland stands 
at the eastern base of a talcose slate mountain, against which 
repose Lower Silurian limestone and Hew Red sandstone and 
shale, with its celebrated building breccia outcropping along the 
edge of the valley. Here are extensive beds of argillaceous 
oxide of iron, underlying blue clay containing nodules of phos¬ 
phate of iron and brown ochre, with a notable percentage of car¬ 
bonate of zinc. The zinc fumes line the furnace with a crust 
that has to be removed, and from which zinc has been made 
with ease, and used in the manufacture of the United States 
standard brass weights. Other deposits of brown hematite are 
known but not wrought along the valley, as for example at 
McPherson’s near the Monocacy, and at places approaching the 

6 Ducatel, 1839, p. 42. 8 Ducatel, 1840, p 50. 

7 Ducatel, 1838, p. 5. 8 Ducatel, 1839, p 13. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


589 


Potomac. Large excavations sliow that in ancient _ v _ 
times much ore has been take out on the road to * 

Jefferson and the Point of Rocks at the eastern foot of Catoctin 
ridge, where the argillaceous oxide and the brown hematite ores 
are mixed. Pieces of the latter and the red variety are fre¬ 
quently met with on the Linganore hills to the east of this. 
Ferruginous oxide of manganese shows itself in the same 


region. 1 

In Carroll county a furnace at the head of Little Pipe 
creek, north of Unionville, once ran on a deposit of argillaceous 
oxide of iron on its own premises ; and another deposit north of 
Manchester once supplied a furnace in Pennsylvania. Ferru¬ 
ginous oxide of manganese appears two miles east of West¬ 
minster. 2 


“Virginia, says Whitney, like Maryland and North Carolina, 
“ possesses inexhaustible supplies of iron ore, which are mostly 
the hydrous peroxide of iron.” Brown hematite ore deposits are 
occasionally seen at the junction of Potsdam Sandstone No. I, 
and the Limestone No. II, sometimes of good quality, but often 
blended with oxide of manganese. 3 Brown hematite, compact, 
earthy, cellular and pipe ores occur in Limestone No. II, espe¬ 
cially in the southwestern counties of the Great valley of Vir¬ 
ginia. 4 Iron pyrites is of very common occurrence in the slates 
of No. Ill in Virginia, giving origin to the sulphurous springs 
like those of Shannondale and Winchester. 6 It is also common 
in the black fossil slates of VIII, 6 disintegrates it and covers its 
surface with sulphate of alumina. In fact the principal iron 
banks of the Great valley of Virginia repose not on the Lime¬ 
stone II but on the Slate III, near or at its junction with the 
Sandstone IV, as in the Big and Little Fort valleys of the 
Massanutten range of the Blue Ridge. 7 The deposits are very 
large, almost always manganesian, but make excellent iron. 

Taking the investigations of the American Iron Association 8 
in 1857 and 185S as the only guide we have, and the counties 
along the Great Lower Silurian Winchester valley in their 

i Ducatel, 1839, p. 33. 5 W. B. Rogers’s Second Rept., p. 67. 

a Ducatel, 1839. p. 34. 6 Same, p. 76. 

3 W. B. Rogers's Second Rept., p. 60. 7 Same, pp. 46, 69. 

* Same, p. 66. 8 Bulletin, p. 112. 



590 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


order southward, we have the following facts, reducible to any 
map by referring first to the location of the furnaces given 
in Part I Table H. 

Jefferson county ; Shannondale furnace (II170) has beds of brown hematite 300 
yards from the Potomac 1^ miles below ; half a mile from the river a mile above; 
and half a mile northwest across the river. 

Frederick county; Taylor furnace (H 171) stands 10 miles west of Winchester, 
but its mines are not mentioned. Zane furnace on Cedar creek is a ruin, abandoned 
thirty years ago. 

Hampshire county ; Vulcan furnace (H 174) used fossil ore, but will hereafter use 
coal measure carbonate. Bloomary furnace uses brown hematite. McCarty’s has 
not blown for thirty years. 

Hardy county; Capon furnace (H 176) on the Cacapon river at the turnpike 
crossing, has red-short brown ore less than two miles west, “in a regular bed, six 
feet wide of unknown depth.” Bryan’s and Trout Bun furnaces are both in 
ruins. 

Warren county; Fort furnace (H 179) or Elizabeth, on Passage creek, uses 
porous brown ore from a bank 300 yards west. 

Shenandoah county ; Columbia, Caroline and Liberty furnaces are running, but 
three others make nothing. Paddy furnace (H 180) gets cold-short brown ore one 
mile west and one mile southwest, with some bog ore three-quarters of a mile due 
west, in which bog lie stumps and roots of trees, and a coffin and human body, all 
turned to ore were exhumed from it.—Columbia furnace (H 181) gets 45 per cent 
brown hematite from Five-mile bank, five miles northwest; 50 per cent ore from 
Three-mile bank southwest; 45 per cent ore from Drummond bank two miles west, 
near where there was formerly a 40 per cent ore from Black-oak bank two miles 
west.—The Vanburen furnace (H 182) No. 1 obtained cold-short brown hematite 
250 yards off, also within a mile and a half north, west and southwest.—Caroline 
furnace (H 184) gets a yellow and black oxide from the mountain 1^ miles on the 
Lurav road, and mixes with it fossil ore from 2£ miles northwest. Liberty furnace 
(H 185) gets its brown ore from one mile north, although there are banks within 
half a mile. Its ore is 60 per cent, or 45 per cent taking strippings and all.—At 
Henrietta furnace (owned by S. B. & J. E. Myers & Co. Orkney Springs P.O.) a 
tunnel has been driven into a mass of nearly vertical ferriferous gneissoid mass 50 
feet thick, above which lies (horizontally as drawn in a rude section sketch) open 
porous brown hematite. The rock, when analyzed by Dr. Genth of Philadelphia, 
contained 71.00 carbonate of iron, 4.80 carbonate of lime, 1.90 carbonate of ma"- 
nesia, 13.50 silica, 6.25 alumina, 1.58 iron pyrites, no phosphoric acid. If picked 
of pyrites, a valuable ore, yielding raw, 35 per cent iron, and more when roasted. 
The existence of this massive carbonate in place beneath a surface deposit of brown 
hematite, tells much of the story of the great range of Lower Silurian limestone 
brown hematite deposits inside the Blue Ridge from Vermont to Alabama. 

Page county ; Isabella furnace (II186) ore lies deep.—Catharine furnace (H 187) 
uses a 40 per cent ore from banks within a mile north-northwest; there is a bed of 
red-short ore close to the furnace not used ; the ore improves along a series of banks 
half a mile apart for two miles southwestward ; a more promising opening has been 
made half a mile northeast.—The Shenandoah Iron-works furnace No. 1 uses a 50 
per cent (cleaned) )re from banks in Rockingham county within 250 yards of fur¬ 
nace No. 2, the furnaces being five miles apart. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


591 


Rockingham county 5 Shenandoah Iron-works furnace No. 2 has Virginia, 
its banks close by.—Margaret Jane furnace (H 190) has a good ore 
bank a mile off, another good bank five miles to the north, and a third of rich ore 
at the foot of the mountain three miles north. A railroad a mile long runs to 
the first bank.—Oakland & Smith’s creek furnaces have been long abandoned. 

Augusta county; Elizabeth furnace (H 193) a new furnace oil the Central rail¬ 
road, has ore somewhat over a mile southwest.—Mossy creek furnace (H 194) 
stands a ruin surrounded by ore banks in all directions from a quarter to two miles 
distant.—Mt. Torry (H 195) on Back creek, has a cold-short ore bank two miles 
northwest.—Canada furnace (H 196) blew but a few days and is aheap of ruins.— 
Estilline furnace (II 197) has very rich cold-short ore two miles southeast, and pipe 
ore, not so rich, two and a half miles south (one and a half miles from first bank).— 
Cotopaxi furnace (H 198) uses Morris bank ore one mile south with some Bear 
bank ore 30 per cent 35 per cent three miles northeast. 

Rockbridge county ; Vesuvius furnace (H 199) on South river, uses Black rock 
(Fulton and MeClung banks) 30 per cent ore one and a half miles south, which it 
roasts ; Kelly 35 per cent easy smelted ore two and a half miles east; a richer 
coldshire bank ore three miles east; Old Moore (Black rock) bank ore 35 per cent 
three miles northeast, which makes the best metal.—Buena Vista furnace (II 200 ) 
fifteen miles further down the river uses Cash bank 33 per cent ore two and a half 
miles east, mixed with Hayes bank 33 per cent ore three miles southeast; Old bank 
50 per cent ore over three miles southeast.—Glenwood furnace (H 201 ) uses 40 per 
cent 45 per cent Greenlee bank ore one mile north ; a bank of nearly all fibrous 
ore, 300 yards southwest of the stack, is just at present stopped by water.—Cali¬ 
fornia furnace (H 202 ) on Bratton’s run, uses a cold-short 50 per cent ore from two 
banks on the same vein 200 yards apart and over two miles from the stack.—The 
four other furnaces in the county were abandoned long ago, but whether the fault 
lay in their ore beds or not is not recorded. 

Alleghany county ; Dolly Ann furnace (II 207), called Rough and Ready once, is 
said to have inexhaustible brown hematite deposits at the stack.—Australia furnace 
(H 209) uses “ 62i per cent” brown ore from a bank 600 yards northwest.—Clif¬ 
ton furnace (H 210) used last in 1854 a 50 per cent ore from banks a mile east and 
west.—The other two furnaces are dilapidated. 

Botetourt county; Roaring run furnace (II 212), abandoned in 1854, had three 
banks on the estate but only used the one a mile north.—Grace furnace (II 213) 
uses two banks near together one mile west; mixes 50 per cent Mountain bank ore 
3 with 50 per cent Black bank ore £ to make high iron ; uses the first alone for grey 
iron.—Cloverdale furnace No. 2 on Back creek, uses Fallon bank 65 per cent (best 
lump) 60 per cent (best fine) ore, three miles south, for gun metal; mix with 
Campbell bank hard 60 per cent fine 40 per cent 50 per cent ore one mile east, to 
make No. 2 metal; to get best gun metal mixes f best fine McFarlane with £hard.— 
Etna furnace (H 219) uses Retreat bank honeycomb ore six miles (by road, ten by 
railroad) north ; lump ore 300 yards west.—The seven other furnaces of the county 
are dilapidated and gave no report of ores. 

Craig county had an old furnace now gone. 

Wythe county; Barrenspring furnace (II 223) uses 45 per cent brown hematite ore 
alloyed with lead from openings 300 and 1,000 yards southeast.—Wilkeson’s fur¬ 
nace (H 224) gets its ore four miles west.—The other three furnaces are aban¬ 
doned. 

Washington county had two furnaces, now gone. (Bull. A. I. Ass.) 


592 


PART n.—DIVISION IT. 


Having now mentioned tlie principal brown hematite deposits 
of the Great Valley of Lower Silurian Limestone and Slate, 
along the northwestern edge of which runs the outcrop of the 
fossil red hematite ore bed of the Upper Silurian Formation 
Ho. V (Clinton), it is only necessary to add that almost every 
one of the XII palaeozoic formations in this State presents to the 
surface more or less extensile and regular dejiosits of brown ore, 
the consequence of the disintegration of sulphuret or carbonate 
of iron in the slate or limestone strata which alternate from bot¬ 
tom to top of the series. But few of these deposits are of any 
practical value, until we enter the great coal region of the west¬ 
ern counties, where innumerable outcrops of the carbonate beds 
of that formation hold their peroxidated treasures in trust for the 
future. Only in the extreme northwestern counties of the State 
have these anywhere attacked. Prof. W. B. Bogers says that 
ore has been found in connection with formation VII (Oriskany 
sandstone), but that he knew nothing about it; 9 and also with 
formation VIII (Devonian) alloyed with manganese. 1 It is in 
this connection particularly unfortunate that the Virginia sur¬ 
vey amounted to so little, because at this geological level the 
iron ores of Middle Pennsylvania and Middle Kentucky occur, 
and may be naturally expected to show themselves well de¬ 
veloped at various points throughout this immense State, the 
floor of which is broken by profound faults hundreds of miles in 
length, reduplicating the surface outcroppings of all the palaeo¬ 
zoic formations many times between the Great Valley on the 
east and the continuous outspread of the Western Coal. The 
Devonian rocks come up over and over again, in long narrow 
belts, any one of which may discover the ore of Ho. VIII in 
force. 

Of a still later date is the brown hematite ore of the Bicli- 
iriond Coal-field, found, as Prof. Bogers says, in proximity to 
Trabue’s pits, and analyzing: Peroxide iron 85.15, silica 4.20, 
alumina 4.00, water 6.50. 2 


The Carolinas and Georgia have their brown hematite ore 
beds, but so connected with the primary red hematite and mag¬ 
netic ores that they were necessarily treated in the last chapter. 

9 Second Report Virginia Survey, p. 75. a Page 78. 

1 W. B. Rogers’s First Report for 1836, Richmond 1838, p. 11. 



BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


593 


E. Tennessee. 


East Tennessee continues the Great Val¬ 
ley of Virginia onward into Alabama, the 
great primary region on its left (the east) broadening south¬ 
wards, as the great coal area on its right (the west) narrows 
in the same direction, the latter being undoubtedly a con¬ 
sequence of the former, in the grand operations of that power 
which slowly shrivelled and cracked the eastern Atlantic 
border of the Continent, shouldering the coal area more and 
more into the air above the level of denudation, and thereby 
bringing it to its close like the smallest synclinal coal basin 
of the anthracite fields. The numerous furnaces and bloom¬ 
ary forges of the East Tennessee Great Valley of Knoxville 
and Chattanooga, show how abundant are the Lower Silu¬ 
rian brown hematite deposits; while those along its north¬ 
western border mark the outcrop of the Upper Silurian red 
hematite fossil ore of V. Troost says that the richest and purest 
of the brown hematite ores in the banks of Eastern Tennessee 
was at one time rejected by the miners under the impression 
that it wvts the Black Jack of the English, a sulphnret of zinc. 
Just so the carbonate of lead was thrown away among the re¬ 
fuse of the Wythe county mines in Virginia as white clay, until 
its value was made known. The railroad runs down the mid¬ 


dle of the Great Valley and the counties lying on the left of it, 
are those which use the older brown hematite deposits, and 
these will be taken in their order going south, following, as be¬ 
fore in Virginia, the Bulletin notes of American Iron Associa¬ 
tion collected in 1857 and 1858. 

Johnson county has but one furnace.—Ward’s bloomary (1134) No. 2 has honey¬ 
comb 25 per cent ore three miles south of it.—Wagner’s three miles higher up 
Laurel fork of Ilolsten, has twenty abandoned banks in its vicinity.—Ward’s forge 
on Roane creek uses banks half a mile and one and a half miles northeast and two 
miles east.— Sandhill forge one and a half miles higher up on the same creek, uses 
Little mountain ore two and a half miles north.—Sand Spring forge on the same 
creek, uses the same ore four and a half miles east, and Big mountain ore six miles 
east. Little mountain is a spur of Doe mountain, and although these ores are 
called hematite, some of them may be outcrops of primary veins, or even red 
hematite, but if so the fact would probably have been stated.—Dugger’s on Wa- 
tanga river, gets honeycomb ore from openings all along the sides of Dry ri^ 
mountain to the northeast, one of which, six miles off, makes soft gun-barrel iron, 
the others are richer.—Murphey’s two forges, a mile apart on Doe creek, use the 
same lump ore from Doe mountain six miles east.—Howard’s two forges, a mile 
apart and also on Doe creek, have ore openings all round the lower forge, and also 
get lump ore from nine miles east. Blevin’s forge on Beaver dam creek, one mile 

38 



594 : 


PART n. -DIVISION II. 


below King’s, uses honeycomb ore got three miles northwest of King’s in Carter 
county. 

Carter county; Union furnace (H 262) on Stony creek, uses Grindstaff bank ore 
half a mile southeast, Canaan band red hematite one mile northwest, and Hodge 
bank brown hematite four miles east, and there are several smaller openings not 
used. The bank most used has 30 to 40 feet of ore in depth, covered with 5 to 15 
feet of red clay ; it is hauled 75 yards to wash, and yields then 40 per cent.—No 
account is given of the ores used at Obrien’s, White’s and Rockbridge furnaces 
(II 265, 266, 267), abandoned.—Stonedam forge (I 348) uses fine Hodge bank ore 
over one mile east, fine and lump Julius bank ore one mile north, lump New bank 
ore over one mile southeast, Taylor bank ore three or four miles southwest; yield¬ 
ing 33 per cent of bar iron in blooming.—Speedwell forge ore is one and a half 
mile east of it.—The two Carter forges, also on Stonev creek, only the upper one 
running, one and a half mile below Union furnace, use the furnace pig and no 
ore.—Farmhall forge, on the same creek, has its brown ores close by.—Purlieu 
forge, on Hoe river, has cold and red-short brown ores to the south and east.— 
Hampton’s forge however is surrounded by magnetic ores. 

Sullivan county; Franklin furnace (H 258) on Bigsinking creek uses $ Sharp- 
bank red hematite (fossil) ore five miles north, i Crockett bank brown hematite ore 
four miles north, the mixture yielding “about 61 percent.”—Holston, Welcker, 
furnace (H 259) on the north bank, uses hard solid red hematite 70 per cent Sharp 
bank ore six miles northeast, 4 to 6 feet thick, wrought for 50 or 60 years (see 
Salford’s report of 1856); sometimes Crockett bank ore, four miles northeast, “an 
extensive ridge of red earth with numerous small blocks of solid hematite scattered 
through it.”—Two old furnaces are on Beaver creek.—Waterloo forge (I 360) on 
Beaver creek used Sharp’s bank ore previous to its stopping in 1855. So does the 
Upper Beaver creek forge ten miles west of the bank. The lower forge is aban¬ 
doned and the river bend forge blooms up pig metal. 

Washington county; Pleasant Valley furnace (H 269) on the Nolichucky gets 
its 60 per cent 65 per cent brown hematite ore from a bank nearly 3 miles south- 
southwest, half a mile back from the river. “ The ore runs from the furnace south- 
westward, into the mouth of a cove, two miles w r ide, and the mountains on each side 
have much ore.”—Cherokee forge three miles north of the furnace uses Cherokee 
creek (brown) hematite ore. Pinegrove forge, abandoned, used Greenridge bank ore. 

Green county furnace (H 271) is abandoned, but Click’s, Alexander’s, Mountain, 
Camp creek, Snapp’s and Paint creek forges all use Cove creek bank and Greenridge 
bank ores, the former called 33 per cent and the latter 25 per cent (mixed f and } 
at Snapp’s), and at the very old Camp creek forge mixed with Cavindish bank 25 per 
cent ore. Cove creek bank is 10 miles southwest and Greenridge bank is one and a 
half mile northeast of Mountain forge on the Watery fork of camp creek. Kelly’s, 
Allen’s, Canada’s, and Brown’s forges are deserted. 

Cocke county; Legion furnace uses Cook bank “ hematite and honeycomb” ore 
four miles north, and Meadow creek bank ore four miles south; there are many 
other smaller bants. 

Sevier county; Pigeon forge (I 380) has brown hematite banks north-northeast 
€nd southwest of it. 

Blount county; Amerine forge uses hard Pfout bank ore four miles west.— 
Shield’s forge on Little river in Tuckaleeche cove was abandoned for want of good 
ore in the neighborhood.—Abram’s forge once ran on 50 per cent ore from four 
miles north.—Cade’s used a bank one mile northeast of it. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


595 


Munroe county; Ballplay furnace (H 574) uses a 30 per JJ. Tennessee, 
cent ore, 1 mile west, in the butt of Harland mountain.—Tel- 

lico furnace, on the river, ten miles southwest of Ballplay, gets brown hematite from 
twelve banks, the principal one being two miles southwest and the rest between 
it and the stack, all 45 per cent ores, yielding 50 per cent in the bloomaries and 
60 per cent in the furnace. 


In Alabama brown hematite ores abound in the prolongation 
of the east Tennessee Lower Silurian valley far down the eastern 
6ide of the State, but they have been comparatively neglected 
for the red dyestone fossil ore of the Upper Silurian, to be 
described in the next chapter. In 1849 Whitney says eight 
bloomaries and two furnaces smelted these ores, the principal 
works being in Benton county. In 1857 Mr. Lyman found the 
following works in operation on the following ores: 

Cherokee county, Round-mountain furnace (H 252) uses 
fossil ore close by. 

Benton county, Polksville furnace (II 253) uses -§ brown 
hematite, ■§■ 43 per cent to 45 per cent “ honeycomb ” ore from 
Chalybeate springs bank two miles north and six other openings 
in the same neighborhood. Two bloomary forges (I 316, 317) 
use the same. 

Talledega county, Robroy, Eagle and Maria bloomaries 
(I 318, 319, 320) now use Sea bank brown hematite ore six miles 
north by road (of Robroy), but formerly used Hooker bank cold¬ 
short ore three miles south (of Robroy) and Stockden bank very 
rich cold-short ore one mile north. The new Amerine forge 
will use Sea bank ore and a new bank ore 2 miles south of the 
forge. Chennebe forge, abandoned, used to use Sea bank ore 
and Brown bank brown hematite ore. 

Shelby county, Shelby furnace (H 254) uses a very beauti¬ 
ful fibrous brown hematite from a ridge a mile long by half a 
mile wide extending northwestwardly from the furnace, the 
present opening being 300 yards from it, the old opening half a 
mile north of it. The three forges of this county refined pig 
metal. 

Bibb county, Brantley’s bloomary (I 326) runs on neigh¬ 
boring brown hematite ores. Stroup’s uses both brown and 
fibrous brown hematite ores averaging 39 per cent, from its own 
neighborhood. 

Camp’s uses a brown hematite bank 300 yards south of it and 




596 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


another as far east of it; used in 1851 fibrous and brown 
hematite from near Jas. Green’s 15 miles north.—Hill’s Ho. 2 
uses Green Pond bank ore and Squire Green’s bank. 

Franklin county in the extreme west of the State had a 
furnace and still has a bloom ary running on a 25 per cent brown 
hematite ore dug 3miles east of it. 3 


In Missouri the Lower Silurian rocks have a wide expanse 
and afford brown hematite ores as on their Atlantic outcrop. 
Swallow reports ninety (90) localities of iron ore in the counties 
along the line of the Pacific railroad southwest branch, 4 a survey 
of which is published with a map and descriptions of the mines 
not only of iron but of lead and other minerals. 5 Some of these 
are noted in the tables on pages 33, 34, 35 as specular ore, some 
as red hematite, some as sulphuret, some as brown hematite, and 
some as mixtures of these ores. In Jefferson county there are 
3, in Franklin 7, in Crawford 19, in Phelps 10, in Pulaski 7, in 
Maries 14, in Laclede 2, in Webster 1, in Green 16, in Dade 1, 
in Lawrence 2, in Stone 3, in Green 1, in Osage 5. The brown 
hematites so marked are in Franklin county at the company’s 
mines and in 42 T, P 2 W, sec. HE 17;—in Pulaski county 
T 36, P 11, sec. HE \ 30;—in Laclede T 36, P 14, sec. 15; 
in Green county T 29, P 24, sec. 24 and 25; T 27, P 24, sec. 
E i 24. But many of the others marked simply hematite are 
no doubt the hydrous oxide; for Swallow says: 

The red and brown hematites are the most common; they occur in nearly all the 
• counties and are found in the Ferruginous sandstone and the Magnesian limestones 
[Lower Silurian I and II]. One of the most valuable localities of iron was observed 
in the southwestern part of Green county. Large masses of jibroiis brown 
hematite cover several acres in the SE \ of the SE ^ of sec. 24, T 27, R 24. 
The bed is more than 8 feet thick in a shaft sunk in it. In the SW \ sec. 19, 
T 27, R 23, we saw another large bed of the same ore. The same excellent ore 
covers many acres in the NW \ of the same section. It also abounds in sec. 7 
of the same township, and in 14 and 15, T 27, R 24. There are also large beds of 
this ore to the north and northeast of these localities. Some important beds of the 
common brown hematite occur at Pond springs and several other localities in Green 
county. In sec. 2 , T 25, R 25, in Stone county large quantities were observed. 
Beds of lesser importance were also seen in nearly all the counties examined. 

s Bulletin American Iron Association, Notes p. 140. 

4 Fourth Report of Progress, 1859, page 8 . 

6 Geological Report of the country along the line, etc., by G. C. Swallow, State 
Geologist, St. Louis, 1859. 8 vo. 



BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


597 


Mr. Engelmann examined large masses of broivn hematite in X^XisSOUri. 

Laclede county near Bear creek in sec. 25, T 36, R 14. In 

Crawford county the varieties observed (by Dr. Shurnard) are the brown hematite, 

specular oxide and sulphuret. Brown hematite is most abundant in sec. 15 

and 36 commingled with pseudomorphous crystals of pyrites, chert and crystallized 

quartz.In Phelps county NW sec. 27, T 36, R 7, large masses of 

specular and brown ore abound on the surface.In Pulaski county specular 

ore exists, and a large deposit of brown hematite in NW sec. 30, T 36, R 11, 
in the eherty beds of the Second sandstone and Third magnesian limestone. 
Large masses of brown hematite were also observed on the hills of Bee branch in 

T 37, R 10.In Jefferson county northeast J, sec. 4, T 39, R 4 east, brown 

hematite masses project from the ground.Near the Webster-Green line, in 

sec. 18, large fragments of hematite occur in a ravipe between Saccharoidal sandstone 
and Second Magnesian limestone. In Green county in sec. 24, 25, T 29, R 24 west, 
masses of brown hematite are found on the summit and sides of a low hill, the 
underlying rock at the nearest locality being Encrinital limestone. In Maries 
county hematite and sulphuret ore is abundant. The sulphuret is frequently 
changed to peroxide on the exposed surface. 

The brown hematite ore of Apple creek and Iron ridge in 
Missouri is described 6 by J. D. Whitney, U. S. Geologist, as 
covering the top and sides of the ridge about two miles west of 
the Mississippi (at Birmingham 120 miles below St. Louis)— 
in loose, brown masses, but seemingly solid, when uncovered in 
the hill, in bands and layers alternating and interlacing with 
eherty or silicious limestone. Some are of poor quality, others 
richer, and all disposed in pocket deposits. A little over a mile 
west of the Mississippi and a mile and a half north of the fur¬ 
nace pure brown hematite ore covers several acres of the ridge 
which runs nearly north and south 150 feet above the valley of 
the creek, in fragments and masses, which towards the southern 
limit of the area become a breccia of hematite and silica, 
cemented by an iron paste. Towards the middle of the hill the 
ore is pure. When shafted on, pure ore masses were always 
found imbedded in fine gravel ore with a little clay, 3 or 4 feet 
down, then ore in place but much broken up and disintegrated, 
then an uneven surface of pure ore in mass looking as if the 
ridge was made of it for 50 feet deep, yielding at least 50 per 
cent. There is ore enough here to keep a number of furnaces 
going for half a century Mr. Whitney thinks. 

The earliest attempt in Missouri, and, in all probability, in any of the States west 
of the Ohio, to smelt iron ore, was in 1823 or 1824; when a blast furnace was 
erected in Washington county, by Eversol, Perry & Ruggles, between Potosi and 
Caledonia. This furnace was afterwards known as Perry’s old iron furnace; and 
from Col Mcllvaine, who was well acquainted with all the operations there, I learn 

« See Amer. R. R. Journal, p. 516, 1853. 







598 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


that the ore first smelted was obtained from Clear creek, which, however, was soon 
discontinued, because it was believed to contain copper ; and that, afterwards, four- 
fifths of that smelted came from near Absalom Eaton’s place, and was mixed with 
ore brought from the Iron mountain. The ore near Mr. Eaton’s is a brown hema¬ 
tite, apparently of a most excellent quality, and excavated from a bank on the hill¬ 
side. In connection with this blast furnace were two forges. The first bar of iron 
made out of pig metal in Missouri, Col. Mcllvaine says, was made on Cedar creek, in 
May, 1825, and the first blooms were made in 1832. Though ore was abundant and 
easily smelted, the great expense of transportation, however, in a new and thinly- 
settled country, soon induced the abandonment of the enterprise. The next blast 
furnace was, probably, erected in 1828, by Mr. Massey, in Crawford, which has been 
in successful operation up to the present time ; but not having been able to visit 
this, I defer any report upon it. 7 

In Franklin county there is but one iron furnace, though 
there is, doubtless, such an abundance of iron ore there that 
many furnaces could be kept constantly supplied. This furnace 
was formerly known by the name of the Moselle, but is now de¬ 
signated as the Furnace of the Franklin Iron Mining Company, 
and is in Township 42 IT, It 1 E, sec. 14, S E The ore is 
found in banks, of which there are four or five now opened on 
the lands of the company. One of them is about fifty feet wide 
and twenty-seven feet high. These ridge-shaped masses, pre¬ 
senting no appearance of stratification, are, in general, opened, 
or quarried, from the side of the hill, and are found, on the other 
three sides, to be surrounded with magnesian limestone. The 
ore obtained from these banks is a brown hematite, intermixed 
with yellow ochre, and found, ofteij, in mammillary and stalac- 
titic masses. In specimens from only one of the banks did I find 
any iron pyrites; and in general the ore is very pure. These 
banks are in the second magnesian limestone, beneath which, 
on the creek, is visible the sandstone that underlies this mem¬ 
ber of the Lower Silurian series. The flux used is the magne¬ 
sian limestone, separated from the chert which accompanies it. 
Ore analysis: Peroxide iron 82.94, water 13.54, silica 1.36, alu¬ 
mina 1.04, with no trace of sulphur or phosphorus. That from 
Mrs. Farrar’s land gave 80.44, 11.39, 8.03, 0.79. Another com¬ 
pact, massive brown hematite covering the hill-sides in T 42 IT. 
P 2 W. sec. 17, JTE gave 80.15, 11.11, 8.27, 0.70. 8 

The Merrimac Horseshoe bend brown hematite beds cover hundreds of acres on 
each side of the Merrimac river, in Franklin county Missouri. These beds of pipe 
ore are “from 5 to 30 feet deep, from three hundred to a thousand feet broad 
and from a quarter to a mile long, the ore occurring ifi masses of from one to five 
hundred cubic feet, connected with yellow ochre.” The Virginia mines lie three 

7 Swallow’s Geological Report of 1854, p. 71. 8 Swallow, page 72. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES-U. SILURIAN. 


599 


miles higher up the Merrimac, in Franklin county Missouri, 16 Wisconsin, 
miles south of South point on the Missouri river. 9 

In Wisconsin, Tower’s furnace (K 625) in the town of 
Marston, T 13, R. 2 E, sec. 9, 10, is a small blast fur¬ 
nace capable of producing about three tons of iron per day, 
and intended for the manufacture of stoves, castings, etc. 
The amount of ore is of course too small for an extensive 
or permanent business. “ It is a hydrated brown oxide, 
quite pure, generally massive, but frequently stalactite and 
mammillary... .in the seams fibrous .... occasionally con¬ 
tains small pebbles of quartz intimately mixed with ore like 
a conglomerate . . . and will yield 45 per cent of metalliic 
iron. It is safe to estimate its amount as equal to a solid 
bed 5 feet thick over 10 acres=272,500 tons, . . . country 
around heavily timbered, lime, etc. convenient.” The ore 
stretches down the hill slope on the east bank of Tower’s creek, 
the surface being covered with fragments of ore sometimes of a 
ton weight, and also large fragments of sandstone, in the fissures 
of which are seams of ore. Shafts sunk through the ore 10 or 
20 feet strike no rock in place ; but the Potsdam (Ho. 1, Lower 
Silurian) sandstone rises 300 feet high upon the hills, capped with 
magnesian limestone. The ore has undoubtedly come from the 
disintegration of the crumbling white sandstone. A similar ore 
is seen in the La Crosse railway tunnel west of Tomah. 1 


Brown hematite ores follow the outcrops of the Upper 
Silurian Limestone VI and Oriskany Sandstone VII. 

This Lower Helderberg Limestone as it is called in Hew 
York, 2 being always a thin formation, its beds of iron ore 
seldom attain any importance. The upper part of Formation 
VI, consisting of chert layers under the coarse sandstone VII 
(Oriskany), contains argillaceous iron ore, and is traversed some¬ 
times by spar veins containing the sulpliurets of lead and zinc. 
At the top of the chert layers is a sandy ore. 3 The soil covering 
the limestone is charged with brown hematite in local deposits, 
as at Bittenbender’s near Stroudsburg Mercer county and at the 

9 Araer. R. R. J. 1846, p. 649. 

1 Daniel’s Annual Geological Report, Madison, 1858. 

a The Cliff Limestone of Ohio; once the Premedidial or Premeridian, now the Scalent 

Limestone of H. D. Rogers. 

3 Rogers’s First Annual Report, p. 14. 



600 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


west end of Montour’s ridge Northumberland county, and in 
many [daces southwest of the Susquehanna. 4 5 

The Oriskany Sandstone, 6 VII, that geological septum or dia¬ 
phragm stretched across the midst of the great Palaeozoic Sys¬ 
tem, covering the Silurians and basing the Devonians or Sub- 
carboniferous formations, and marking such coast or continental 
changes as gave a different face to the whole North American 
creation, is also, as a stratum rock, too small to hold enough of 
iron in its original sedimentary forms, to furnish afterwards ex¬ 
tensive brown hematite deposits. In middle Pennsylvania how¬ 
ever some exist. 

Here the ore of VII follows the outcrop of the sandstone, 
wherever that formation is ferruginous enough to form surface 
ore under the action of the atmosphere. The soft friable pale 
reddish sand contains at certain places bombs and shreds of 
segregated brown hematite ore, which strew the surface of the 
ground but serve no other purpose than to deceive the expec¬ 
tations which they raise. The Lower Helderburg Limestones No. 
VI (scalent), underlie it everywhere, and are oftentimes ferru¬ 
ginous enough to produce bog . ore upon the surface, as in 
Schuylkill Haven, 6 and in Huntingdon county, north of Hunt¬ 
ingdon, where it occurs in nests in the outcrop washings, and 
resembles in all respects the brown hematite beds of the Lower 
Silurian limestone outcrops. 7 Throughout that valley much 
good ore has been found in connection with this line of outcrop ; 
and in Tuckahoe valley, Blair county, two miles east of Altoona, 
Baker's great quarry of brown hematite one of the finest in 
the country, occupies a neighboring position, and was described 
on page 586 above. 

The ore of VII in Perry county is light hazel, slaty, some¬ 
times cellular and mammillary, quite heavy, and always found at 
the top layer of the formation, but contains sometimes pebbles, 
and is no doubt an original deposit previous to or down from 
■the slates of VIII which rest upon it. 8 It was once mined in 

4 Rogers’s Second An. Rep., p. 49. 

5 Rogers’s Meridian Sandstone. 

8 Final Report p. 291 vol i. See also at Pinegrove, p. 293, and at Clarissa furnace 

p. 288. 

7 At Caspar Flecker’s seven miles and at King’s five miles from the forge; also at 
Fluke’s where it is covered with yellowish clay. Final Report p. 526. 

8 Henderson in Fin. Rep. p. 351. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES-SUBCARBONIFEROUS. 


601 


several places for Perry and Juniata furnaces 12 to 18 inclies 
thick, lying on the upper bed of the sandstone. It extends very 
regularly over all that part of the country. 

Further southwest where formation VII is divided into a 
lower slate and an upper sandstone member, the ore appears 
between them two feet thick, sandy and poor, apparently 
derived from the loose soft coarse-grained sandstone above and 
received in the top layers of the buff clay slate below. At 
Chester furnace northwest of Orbisonia the ore contains much 
oxide of manganese and is refractory. 

In Virginia this formation has been observed to furnish unim¬ 
portant deposits of coarse brown hematite. It was a shore de¬ 
posit itself, as is shown by its nests of worn shells, which, 
when alive inhabited little nooks and miniature estuaries 
along its air and water line, and when dead were often rubbed 
quite smooth by the waves against each other or the sand. 
Such are quite numerous for miles south of the Potomac river 
in Virginia. Consequently the formation thins westward un¬ 
derneath the area of the coal measures, while its edge traverses 
New York, New Jersey and the Atlantic States to Alabama. 


Here the chapter on the brown hematites ought to stop ; for 
the carbonate ores of iron now set in, in the bottom of VIII, in 
XI, at the top of XI, in the coal measures, and in theTertiaries 
of the sea coast. But these carbonates are changed at their 
outcrop edges into brown hematite; and where they are out¬ 
spread quite flat over the surface, under merely a covering of 
diluvium or gravel and sand, the agency of carbonated rain¬ 
waters has more rapidly and thoroughly acted upon them, con¬ 
verting the whole formation into the hydro-peroxide, etc. In 
this again we see the probability that all the older Silurian and 
Presilurian iron oTes were originally carbonates, differing from 
the more modern, first in having been deposited in a more 
troubled time and therefore not so regularly, and secondly in 
having been longer subjected to the oxidating agencies. In 
western Pennsylvania, eastern southern Ohio, eastern Kentucky 
and western Virginia, the hematized outcrops of the carboni¬ 
ferous and sub carboniferous carbonates so evidently belong to 
that division of the subject that they will be left for the Fourth 




G02 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Chapter. But in western Kentucky and Tennessee, the subcar- 
boniferous carbonate of iron was either the last rock deposited 
in that central sea before its bed rose filially to air, or was the 
highest rock spared when the surface was denuded to its present 
undulating level. It matters little to decide which. We are in¬ 
terested here only in the fact that over the subcarboniferous lime¬ 
stone in the overlying sandstone, immense deposits of carbonate 
of iron took place which by the agency of sulphuric and car¬ 
bonic acids were concentrated, segregated into balls, and con¬ 
verted into a vast bed of brown hematite, the rutiled edges of 
which are exposed along all the ravines and subravines debouch¬ 
ing on each side into the valleys of the Tennessee and Kentucky 
rivers. The Mesapotamia itself between the rivers is a flat hill 
ridge, say 200 feet high, with radiating spurs running down to 



the river bottoms, and the spurs in their turn spurred or serrated 
on 1 oth sides. In all these spurs the ore deposit shows itself 
and rides the central ridge. The furnaces run their railroads 
or wagon tracks into open quarry-cuts which gradually pene¬ 
trate and pass through the spurs, exposing from 30 to 60 feet 
of ore-ground in the walls of the quarry. The mining is car¬ 
ried in on as near a dead level as possible for the sake of drain¬ 
ing and hauling, so that the ore is left in the bottom of the 
quarry and no one knows how deep it is. The ore is a mass of 
sand, clay and iron balls, lumps of brown and fibrous hematite, 
balls of flint, etc. etc. in a looser or tighter condition, finer or 
coarser, purer or impure, sulphurous or less sulphurous, more 
clayey or more flinty, as the case may be, under the possibility 
of a thousand variations. At Lewis’s Cumberland Works one 
mine of splendid ore has been abandoned after a thorough trial, 











BROWN HEMATITE ORES-SUBCARBONIFEROUS. 


603 


Ground plan. 



Side wall face. 


because the flint pieces were too intimately ,,, m 

. , , , , .I, W. Tennessee. 

associated with the ore to be separated by 

any practical process. The most interesting points about these 
mines are the irregularity of the upper surface of the ore and 
the intrusion of dykes or wedges of pure sea sand 9 into the ore- 
ground. In the old cut at Lewis’s mines, which went through 
one spur, the ore, all the way through the cutting, appeared 
above the floor in pyramids, some of which are still to be seen 
with blunt summits very sharply defined against the covering 
of sand and clay. In another cutting a vertical wedge of sand 
cut oif the ore at the heading, but a little 
leader was seen round its point at the extreme 
right which led to its circumvention and a 
knowledge of its exact shape. In one of the 
mines now open a horizontal wedge of sand 
penetrates the wall in a slightly sloping pos¬ 
ture, and when near its point fades away into 
ore clay. These facts seem to prove that after 
the great deposit was made the surface was de¬ 
nuded and filled with sea sand. But also that 
during the formation of the ore sea sand unadul¬ 
terated with iron was dashed in by sudden violent 
storms or currents. If so, the iron ore must still 
be confined to its original position, and its pre¬ 
sent character must be simply a conversion of 
the carbonate into hydro-peroxide. It is remarkable that most of 
these deposits are of what is called pot ore, that is, hollow balls of 
ore, which when broken look like broken caldrons. One of them 
preserved by Mr. Lewis is 8 feet across the rim! Another is 
six feet across. The majority are crossed within by purple dia¬ 
phragms or partitions of ore, and the interstitial spaces filled with 
yellow ochre. Some, like the great eight-foot pot, are found to 

9 The loose white sand-layers interstratified 
with clays in every formation, refuse to hold 
the peroxide of iron. Dr. Jackson has drawn 
curious forms of sand interpolations in reporting 
on the iron ore beds of middle Pennsylvania for 
the geological survey, showing how the deposits 

of sand and clay alternated, each new deposit __ 

being cut down or shaved off before the next of the other kind was thrown down over it. 
In all these cases the sand remains pure white, glittering, with crystals large enough even 
to break, while the clays are full of ore. 
























604 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


be, when broken, full of water. The inside surface is mammil¬ 
lary, irregular, sometimes botryoidal or knobby, but the outside 
is pretty smooth and regular. All these pots were undoubtedly 
once balls of carbonate of lime and iron , segregated in the ori¬ 
ginal deposit. Such nodules are found in infinite numbers from 
western Virginia to Kansas. Most of them are cracked star- 
shape inside, often in marvellously regular forms. The cracks are 
filled with crystallized carbonate of lime, and carbonate of lime, 
and sometimes sulphate of lime. Sometimes they have cubes 
of sulphuret of iron or sulphuret of zinc or lead inside. Gyp¬ 
sum and pyrites are both of them often found in these Tennessee 
pots. How BiscliofF and others show that calcspar or crystallized 
carbonate of lime is gradually dissolved out of crevices and 
replaced with carbonate of iron in a crystallized form, and this 
again changed gradually into peroxide of iron, first hydrous and 
then anhydrous and then magnetic. Here we have the explana¬ 
tion of the septa or partitions in these pots, and in fact of all 
the accompanying phenomena. 1 

Troost in his 4th Annual Report 1837 page 15 says that t; the silicious stratum 
which covers the carboniferous limestone strata and which forms all the high 
grounds of Middle Tennessee is the site of the inexhaustible deposits of hydroxide 
of iron which supplies all the iron furnaces of Tennessee with ore, those only 
excepted which draw their ore from the stratum of red oxide of iron on the eastern 
declivity of the Cumberland mountain ” No. V; and he describes this silicious stra¬ 
tum as sometimes a sand-stone, sometimes a chert or horn-stone and sometimes an 
earthy rock like tripoli; as always separated from the limestones under it by a black 
clay schist or shale containing sulphuret of iron and coaly matter. 

In western Tennessee the brown hematite beds near the Dover furnaces and 
Rolling Mills (K. 574, J. 207) are of great extent. All the ore banks of this region 
are open quarries. The ore is chiefly compact brown iron-stone, with cavities here 
and there filled in with brown and yellow ochre and lined with crystalline brown 
hematite. An average of several analyses gave Troost in 1840 Protoxide of iron 
70. ( = Iron 61f), water 12. manganese 2.5, silex 4.5, alumina 1. 

The ochre yielded 54.= 42. pure iron. 

A crystal of sulphate of lime two inches long was found in one of the cavities. 

A small vein of earthy black oxide of manganese and yellow ochre traverses one 
of the Dover banks in several directions. A blackish glossy ore gave protoxide of 
iron 76.5 ( = 59£ iron), water 12. manganese 5. silex 4.5, alumina 1. Another gave 
pro. F. 80. ( = 62 iron), water 15. and manganese 1. 

The iron bearing district of western Tennessee embraces that portion of the 
State lying mostly east of the Tennessee and south of the Cumberland rivers, in 
the counties of Harding, Wayne, Lawrence, Lewis, Perry, Decatur, Humphreys, 
Hickman, Benton, Dickson, Montgomery, and Stewart; the first nine of which are 
drained by the Tennessee and Duck rivers, while the Cumberland river in 


1 I owe this description to Joseph Lesley, Jun. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


605 


its westward course just touches the corner of Dickson and passes through 
Montgomery and Stewart counties until it reaches Dover C. H. where it makes an 
abrupt turn, and runs northwesterly, nearly parallel to and at no great distance 
from the Tennessee, through Kentucky, to the Ohio. This district lies entirely 
across the State from south to north, and is 115 miles in length by about 50 in 
breadth, presenting, for the most part, an undulating plain surface, much cut up 
by water-courses. It presents but few inducements to the agriculturist, though 
wood is abundant, affording a cheap fuel for the furnaces and forges. Stone-coal 
will, no doubt, be extensively used at some not very distant day, as a railroad is 
now being constructed from Memphis, through this region, to open up the large 
and superior coal deposits of the upper Cumberland River. The roads traversing 
the country are, with one or two exceptions, bad, and in the rainy seasons great 
inconvenience is felt in obtaining stock for the works. 

“ Over this whole region valuable deposits, or banks, more or less isolated, some 
of them of great extent, are scattered. They are found in or in good part forming 
many of the knobs or ridges which lie between the small branches or skirting 
their valleys. At many points, these ridges, extending for one, two, or, in a few 
cases, even three miles, are made up of deep and immense masses of flinty matter, 
or chert and ore mixed with clay, all resting upon a silicious or cherty limestone 
basis. The limestone does not always appear near the banks, being covered over 
by their loose masses to a depth of from fifty to two hundred feet—such being the 
thickness of the deposits. The ore occurs in great blocks, lumps and ‘ pots,’ iso¬ 
lated, or in heaps, or in irregular veins, layers etc. from a foot to twenty or 
more feet in thickness, scattered at intervals through the banks of clay and chert. 
With the single exception of the Marion bank, near Clifton, in Wayne county, these 
ores all belong to one species—the brown iron ore, or limonite, comprising the com¬ 
pact ‘ honey-comb,’ pot, and pipe ores and ochre—the three first being common, 
and found at nearly all the banks. ‘ Pots ’ often occur filled with decomposing 
chert, frequently with water, and a few have been noticed inclosing splendid crys¬ 
tals of selenite or sulphate of lime. The pipe ore is abundant at some localities in 
Stewart.” (J. M. Stafford’s Geol. Recon. of Tenn. pp. 47, 48.) 

The following is an average of the results of five analyses made by Dr. Troost, 
from five different localities. Peroxide of iron 76.5, Oxide of Manganese 2.25, 
Water 13.6, Earthy matter and loss 8.1 : percentage of pure iron 53.54. 

Over the region just described are scattered the furnaces named in the table, 
most of which, however, stand in the counties of Dickson, Montgomery, and Stew¬ 
art. Of these, thirty-two are at present in full working order, though but fifteen 
are now running, or expect to run this year—their combined estimated yield being 
17 550 tons of metal. In 1854 31 furnaces in blast, produced 37,917 tons of iron; 
in 1S55, 27 furnaces in blast, produced 32,784 tons of iron ; in 1856 26 furnaces iu 
blast, produced 32,800 tons of iron; and in 1857 22 furnaces in blast produced 
28,328 tons of iron. Charcoal is the only fuel used, and costs, delivered at the 
works, about $4 00 per hundred bushels (pit measure). At all the furnaces the 
work is performed by negroes, with but one exception (Ashland furnace), where it 
has been found better to employ Irish and German laborers for mining and hauling, 
negroes being onlv employed about the furnace itself. The metal made at these 
works is shipped by steamboat to works on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, or is 
made up into blooms at the neighboring forges, and iu that shape sold mostly to 
the rolling mills at home and abroad. 

The iron bearing district of Western Kentucky is an extension northward of the 


606 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Tennessee district, and lies to the west and east of, and between the Cumberland 
and Tennessee Rivers, in the counties of Calloway, Trigg, Lyon, Caldwell, Livingston 
and Crittenden. In it there are at present in full working order, ten furnaces, six 
of which are running this year, and will make about 7,500 tons of metal. There are 
two rolling mills, both in full operation, and three forges, one of which only is running. 
The amount of pig metal produced in this region from January 1854 to January 
1858, was 56,700 tons—9 furnaces in 1854 making 13,300 tons; 10 in 1855, 12,300 
tons; 10 in 1856, 15,500 tons ; and 10 in 1857 making 15,600 tons. Here also char¬ 
coal is the only fuel employed and negro labor is preferred. Each proprietor hires 
on Christmas day from the surrounding plantations that number of hands which he 
will need for the ensuing year. The ores of the region according to analyses made 
oy Dr. Peter, Chemist to the Kentucky Geol. Survey, yield from twenty-five to 
fifty per cent of iron; the earthy silicious matter varies from nine to fifty-four 
per cent, with usually small quantities of alumina, lime, magnesia, carbonic and 
phosphoric acid, and alkalies; these latter ingredients being seldom over a fraction 
of one per cent. (Vol. I.—Nos. 139, 142, 143.) 3 

Western Kentucky—Crittenden county —Hurricane furnace (K 551) gets its 
brown hematite ore from the celebrated Jackson bank nearly two miles distant.— 
Crittenden furnace (K 552) has ore in its neighborhood. 

Livinston county —Ozeoro or Hopewell furnace (K 553) has brown hematite 
banks near by. 

Lyon county —Underwood furnace was abandoned the year of its erection.—The 
Suw T aunee iron-works (K 555) two and a half miles back from Cumberland river in 
the midst ol a fine ore and timber country, gets its brown hematite from the Iron 
mountain bank ” three miles west of the furnace; crops out around the summit ot 
a hill 70 feet high, and yields 50 per cent in the furnace, producing a metal “ par¬ 
ticularly adapted to the making of steel; is used in Pittsburg for that purpose, and 
in Cincinnati for making boiler plate.” Nine hands will quarry and dig sufficient 
ore to make 1,600 tons of pig metal annually. During the last four years the metal 
has been converted into blooms at Union forge, and thence shipped by river to mar¬ 
ket. The furnace blew out last Christmas and is not now in blast. It is at this fur¬ 
nace that Mr. Kelly’s process for refining iron in the hearth has been most fully 
experimented upon.—Mammoth furnace (K 557) one mile from the left bank of 
Cumberland river on Little Hurricane creek, has its banks from one to three-quarters 
of a mile west.—Fulton furnace (K 558) uses pot ore from banks in its neighbor¬ 
hood. 

Trigg county —Centre furnace (K 559) and Empire furnace (K 560) two and a 
half miles east of it on the left bank of the Cumberland river, one mile above (south) 
the Tennessee R. M. and forge, have their own banks.—Laurel furnace (K 561) 
has brown hematite mostly pot ore in the vicinity. 

Calloway county has one furnace (Gerard K 563) running on the same kind 
of ore 


Western Tennessee—Stewart county —Saline furnace (K564) has exhausted her 
ore banks and stopped, Christmas 1854.—Great Western furnace (K 565) has its brown 
hematite banks near by, on the dividing ridge between the rivers.—Iron Mountain 
furnace (K 566) uses brown hematite, both pipe and pot ore, scattered over the 
surface of the ground in the neighborhood. No permanent bank has as yet been 

3 Joseph Lesley, Jun., in Bulletin Amer. I. Ass., 1858. 




BROWN HEMATITE ORES. 


607 


discovered.—Peytona furnace (K 567) between the rivers, has rich banks within 
a mile both north and south of it.—Clark furnace (K 568) on Leatherwood creek, 
has ore within 800 yards north of west. Out since December 1856.—Lagrange 
furnace (K 569) on the same creek a mile from Tennessee river, has banks one and 
a half miles down the river.—Eclipse furnace (K 570) on Hurricane creek, four 
miles north of the river, has banks two miles to the west.—Cross creek furnace 
(K 571) has ore in the immediate vicinity.—Rough and Ready furnace (K 572) has 
not run since 1856.—Bellwood, Bearspring and Dover No. 2 are three furnaces 
clustered between the Cumberland rolling mill and the forge, on the Cumberland 
river, and with mines in the spurs around them. The Bellwood is on the east side 
of the river. The ore used (brown hematite) is the same as that which supplies 
Dover No. 2 , and is got from the “ Bear spring ore bank,” situated about three- 
quarters of a mile due west from the mouths of North and South Cross creeks. 
This bank, which has been mined since 1829, occurs at the end of one of the fin¬ 
gers of the long dividing ridge between Cross creek waters and Bear spring hollow. 
Along this ridge, but principally in its fingers, many banks, affording a very supe¬ 
rior quality of iron ore, have been opened and are now worked. At one of these 
banks, some two miles northwest of Dover No. 2 and five miles west from Cumber¬ 
land iron-works, appears a solid bluff of very rich ore intimately mixed with fine 
flint rock to such an extent that the ore cannot be used for fear of chilling up the 
furnace. From these banks small cars drawn by mules convey the ores without 
transhipment over a cast iron railway of cheap and simple construction to the river 
bank, where they are let down by a windlass over an inclined plane on to a long 
boat which is employed to float them to the north bank. There they are taken up 
by a similar plane to a railway half a mile long leading to the furnace. The Bear 
spi’ing furnace ore bank is close to it and still very rich.—Ashland furnace 
(K 576) has a bank of very rich brown hematite, mostly pot and pipe ore, within 
half a mile, but very hard to get; some of it occurs in thin slabs, which, when 
struck, ring like bell-metal.—Union furnace (K 577) stopped in the fall of 1854, 
having only blown six months, for want of ore in the neighborhood in sufficient 
abundance. 

Montgomery county ; Poplar spring furnace (K 579) has superior brown hema¬ 
tite ore lying around the works, the heaviest deposits occurring half a mile south 
and one and a half west.—Yellow creek furnace (K 580) uses a superior pipe ore 
worked by drifts under a hundred feet of cover.—Sailor’s Rest furnace (K 581) uses 
pipe ore from banks one mile from the river and the mouth of Yellow creek.— 
Montgomery furnace (K 5S2) has pipe and block ore in three banks, the best half 
a mile north of Palmyra, and the other two less than a mile and a half north-north¬ 
east and due south.—Antonio furnace (K 584) on East Yellow creek, uses brown 
hematite (honeycomb, pot and pipe) from four banks, 280 yards due east, 180 yards 
southeast, 430 yards due north, and a short distance due west, the whole lying 
along three lines of hills which inclose the furnace. At one of these banks, over 
limestone, are seen blocks, lumps and pots of ore, isolated or in masses 4 to 5 feet 
thick, scattered through the clay and chert; this ore yields 40 per cent raw, or 55 
to SS per cent roasted. It is exposed by stripping, and worked by Irish and Ger¬ 
man laborers, who raise four loads (H ton per load) per day for SI per load. Fur¬ 
nace burnt down and rebuilt 1857, and December 25 of same year Mr. Yanleer 
retired from the firm. (Correspondence). Blew in March 29, 1858. Louisa furnace 
(K 585) uses a bank 600 yards west of it in a north and south range of hills, the 



608 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


ore being found from the surface down to a depth of sixty feet.—The other four 
furnaces of the county are abandoned. 

Dickson county; Cumberland furnace (K 590) on the iron fork of Barton creek 
uses pot and honeycomb ore from two ridges, the banks being one and one and a 
half miles distant.—Carroll furnace, on another branch, has its ore nearly three 
miles west on still another branch of Barton creek.—Bellevue, the old Mammoth 
furnace (K 592), had plenty of good ore, but it is nine miles off, and the river is 18 
miles away, so it fell to ruin.—Worley furnace (K 593) has abundant pot ore, 
rich, worked in banks, 300 yards distant, and on a level with the tunnel head. 
Two mules haul all the ore necessary to run this furnace.—Piney furnace (K 594) 
has good ore three miles off, but hard to get.—Laurel furnace (K 595) has ore 
hard to get half a mile distant, and also nine miles distant, which is too far to haul, 
so the furnace was abandoned and turned into a camp-ground, the pulpit being 
placed appropriately in the run out arch.—Jackson furnace (K 596) has its banks 
seven miles off to the south-southwest, and will probably never run again. 

Hickman county ; Oakland furnace (K 597) has brown hematite ore banks a 
mile and a mile and a quarter south.—iEtna furnace used honeycomb ore princi¬ 
pally, but has not been in blast since 1855. 

Perryvounty ; Cedar grove furnaces, close together and alternately in blast, run 
upon lump ore from the neighborhood. 

Decatur county ; Brownsport furnace (K 601) and Decatur furnace (K 602) run 
upon the same kind of ore as the rest; the latter has banks from one to one and a 
half miles east of it. 

Hardin county has but one furnace, Marion, on the right bank of the Tennessee 
river. 

V/ayne county; Forty-eight furnaces, close together, and lately pulled down to 
rebuild as one large stack, ran on pot ore, found good and in large quantities 200 
yards east . 4 

The range of values to be assigned to the brown hematite ores 
just described, as well as to the brown hematite outcrop ores of 
the eastern and western coal-measure carbonates can be seen by 
the following table of percentage of peroxide of iron in various 
specimens sent in to the office of the State Geologist at Frank¬ 
fort, Kentucky; and by consulting the pages of analyses in the 
Reports of Dr. Owen and his assistants; showing moreover the 
intimate and constant admixture of silica, alumina, lime, mag¬ 
nesia, manganese, zinc, sulphur, phosphorus and carbon in these 
curious and important beds, more about which wfill be said in 
Chapter IY to follow. The absence of protoxide of iron in these 
specimens makes the proportion of peroxide to iron constant. 
The general absence of protoxide in the western ores is the only 
doubt cast upon their proto-carbonate origin. 


4 Bulletin American Iron Association, notes, 1858. 


BROWN HEMATITE ORES 


609 




Dr. Peter's Analyses of Kentucky Lirnonites. 


Spec. 

Perox. 


IRON. 

Spec. 

Perox. 


IRON. 

655 

91.78 

— 

64.27 

59 

63.20 

' 

44.26 

436 

88.61 

— 

61.98 

94 

62.90 

r 

44 04 

36 

87.00 

— 

60.09 

654 

62 25 

— 

43.59 

425 

85.91 

— 

60.16 

146 

62.20 


43.20 

m 

85.16 


59.63 

419 

62.12 

— 

43.50 

428 

84.45 


59.14 

489 

62 01 

— 

43.46 

442 

83.83 

— 

58.70 

318 

61.00 

' 

42.78 

144 

83.80 


58 68 

414 

60.90 

= 

42.65 

95 

81.87 


57.33 

147 

60 70 


42.50 

292 

81.40 

— 

57.00 

57 

60.50 

— 

42.35 

83 

80.60 

= 

56.44 

413 

60 18 

— 

42.14 

448 

80.50 

. 

56.37 

33 

60 00 

‘ 

42 00 

307 

80.30 

— 

56.23 

46 

58.90 


41.24 

437 

80.20 

= 

56.14 

130 

58.75 

= 

41.14 

290 

80.03 

— 

56.02 

478 

58 30 

— 

40.82 

5 

79.90 


55.95 

453 

58.30 

— 

40.82 

421 

79.40 

— 

55 60 

103 

57 90 


40.53 

473 

78.43 

— 

54.93 

96 

57.10 


40.03 

293 

77.50 

— 

54.25 

105 

56 70 


39 70 

418 

76.90 

— 

53.85 

93 

56.50 

— 

39.56 

316 

76.90 

— 

53.85 

747 

56.14 

— 

39.31 

81 

76.20 

— 

53.36 

420 

56.10 


39.28 

415 

74.70 

— 

52.31 

35 

54.60 


38 23 

431 

74.50 

— 

52.17 

653 

54.08 


37.87 

412 

74.30 

— 

52.03 

399 

53 46 

— 

37.44 

291 

73.90 

— 

61.75 

444 

53 44 

— 

49.39 

439 

73.34 

— 

51.36 

131 

52.16 

— 

36.52 

476 

72.80 

— 

50.98 

441 

51.10 

~ 

35.78 

34 

72.70 

— 

60.90 

72 

51.00 


35.71 

82 

71.90 

— 

50.35 

438 

49.90 

— 

35.06 

142 

71.74 

— 

50.24 

32 

49.69 

— 

34.79 

12 

71.50 

— 

50.07 

54 

49.45 

— 

34.63 

143 

71.50 

— 

60.07 

147 

48.70 

— 

34.10 

58 

70.30 

— 

49.23 

31 

41.70 r 


29 20 

429 

69.60 

— 

48.74 

309 

41.40 

— 

29.00 

474 

68.30 

— 

47.83 

119 

39.90 


28 48 

317 

68.20 

— 

47.76 

23 

39.60 

= 

27.73 

45 

68.10 

— 

47.69 

405 

39.48 

— 

27.64 

70 

68.10 

— 

47.69 

727 

39.34 


27.55 

73 

67 60 

— 

47.27 

69 

38 50 

— 

26.96 

13 

67.40 

— 

47.20 

139 

35.97 


25 27 

417 

67.14 

— 

47.02 

635 

34.60 


24.23 

55 

66.90 

— 

46.85 

589 

33.99 

— 

23.80 

446 

66.76 

— 

46.75 

107 

32.10 


22.48 

442 

66.03 

— 

46 24 

646 

27.18 

— 

19.00 

SO 

65.30 

— 

47.82 

609 

26.69 

= 

18.69 

106 

64.70 

— 

45.31 

71 

26.60 

nz 

18.62 

44 

64.18 

_ 

46.00 

289 

24.70 

izz 

17 29 

424 

63.60 

_ 

44.54 

460 

23.70 

HIT 

16 59 

408 

63.60 

— 

44.54 

11 

23.20 

— 

19.24 

451 

63.60 

_ 

44.54 

634 

20.87 

— 

14.61 

56 

63.50 

— 

44.54 

104 

13.25 


9.27 


» 


39 






610 


i 


PART n. -DIVISION II. 


The later brown hematite ores, both those of the Tertiary 

and those of the Quaternary and existing ages, are of so different 
a character from the foregoing in the practical working and 
history of the manufacture that they fall systematically under 
the head of Bog ores and are discussed in the fifth chapter. 


( 





CHAPTER IH. 

THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 

The Fossil Ore lias been studied in Clintor county Hew 
York, at Danville and Bloomsbnrg on the north branch Susque¬ 
hanna in Pennsylvania, at Hollidaysburg at the head of the Ju¬ 
niata in the same State, along the foot of the Cumberland moun¬ 
tain in Eastern Tennessee, and at Maysville in Wisconsin. We 
will take them in this order, in describing the localities. These 
are the regions wherein this extraordinary deposit has been best 
developed, so far as its outcrop-lines present opportunities to 
study it. Ho doubt beneath the superincumbent masses of later 
formations in many places other local instances of greater size 
exist which never will be reached by the miner’s pick or known 
to the geologist. Such an outspread of one, two or three thin 
strata of red hematite, inclosing grains of limestone, sand or 
shells, fragments of coral and perhaps sea-weed, almost coexten¬ 
sive with the United States, not long preceding in the order of 
time the appearance of the Oriskany seacoast, while it argues a 
deep extensive ocean, wide gentle currents, and a chemical ac¬ 
tion quite universal, involves of course such variations in the 
process of precipitation as insure the local character of the ore 
beds in a workable or valuable form. When the whole edge of 
the formation is upturned and cut down to the level of the 
country it is consequently found to vary greatly, sometimes be¬ 
ing two feet thick, or very pure, and at other times but a few 
inches thick, or equally impure. When we speculate upon the 
origin of the ferruginous matter, we are left to conjecture ex¬ 
tensive rivers, bringing into and spreading over the bed of the 
ocean ferruginous mud from a country of Lower Silurian and 
Primary rocks, occupying what now are the British possessions, 
Canada and the Adirondac regions of Hew York,—rocks them¬ 
selves loaded, as we have seen, with iron ores of every variety, 
specular, magnetic and brown hematite. Perhaps the very 
strata of the Lower Silurian, the present edges of which now 


612 


rART II.-DIVISION II. 


yield tlie brown hematites of the Great Valley, had then an early 
and now no longer existing range of brown hematites deposits 
upon their more ancient outcrops. If it be asked why this in¬ 
flux was not constant,—why it did not occur through the long 
Hudson river period (III), through the Shawangunk and Medina 
period (IV),—why it waited for the present epoch and recurred 
at intervals three or four times,—we are at a loss to answer, ex¬ 
cept that, perhaps, only now and only during these short recur¬ 
rences, the Lower Silurian and Primary region lay above the 
surface, and moreover, after the troublous times which succeeded 
the deposition of the Hudson river slates now first returned the 
quietness in which the iron and lime could be precipitated. It 
is observable that during the previous age (Ho. IV) sand was 
the chief deposit, white first, then red, with pebbles, and sea¬ 
weed, showing a new shore ; and on this new shore the lowest 
or sandy ore was evidently thrown; and so locally that we may 
see it, in imagination, being distributed around the mouths of 
streams. Afterwards, when the ocean bed was better equalized, 
the waters quieter, the mechanical deposit muddier, and the 
molluscous and coralline life more secure and abundant (to¬ 
wards the east, for towards the west, as in Wisconsin, the sea 
was too deep to bear life and no fossils are there seen in the ore 
bed), then the still wider mingled lime and iron precipitation 
took place, no doubt under the influence of that occult law by 
which decomposing organic form has always determined the 
chemical mineral changes. Rogers supposes the sudden appear¬ 
ance of the iron as a precipitate may be due to the new and 
sudden influx of carbonate of lime into the ocean. This how¬ 
ever would implicate extraordinary mutations of the continents 
whence came the rivers feeding the ocean in question. He 
says: 

These regularly-bedded ores of the Surgent series are to be regarded as among 
the permanent constituent strata of the formation, and as having originated, with 
the other sedimentary materials, in the form of very extended but thin sheets of 
ferruginous matter, covering at successive epochs the wide floor of the quiet Appa¬ 
lachian sea. Whence all the oxide of iron was derived which mingled with the 
earthly deposits of clay, sand, carbonate of lime, and the fossils of these deposits, is 
a question which the present state of research scarcely enables us to answer. Per¬ 
haps we are authorized, from a consideiation of the physical changes which seem to 
have occurred at the close of the Matinal period, to refer its origin to a wide expanse 
of newly-upraised land of Primal and Matinal sediments, impregnated with a certain 
proportion of furruginous matter, and to suppose that these parts, freshly exposed 


THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


613 


to active erosion and waste by atmospheric agents, in sup- New York, 
plying a part at least of the materials of the Surgent strata, 
contributed, by steady accumulation, a copious amount of the salts of iron in 
solution to the waters of the Levant ocean. We have only to imagine, in 
the next place, the operation of certain well-known chemical reactions, such 
especially as would arise upon the sudden introduction of calcareous matter, to 
perceive a sufficient cause for the extensive precipitation of a definite quantity 
of the iron in the form of the peroxide. This explanation derives some coun¬ 
tenance from the independent evidence afforded,—by the more calcareous and 
fossiliferous nature of these ore beds, compared with the strata which embrace 
them,—that the epochs of the deposition of the iron ore were also the periods of the 
most copious supply of carbonate of lime. To this source we may ascribe, with 
some probability perhaps, a large portion of the peroxide of iron in these layers; 
but we must not overlook another train of causes, operating since the elevation of 
the strata, to contribute in certain situations an increased supply of this ingredient. 
An enormous quantity of ferruginous matter, both in the shape of sulphuret and 
peroxide of iron, is diffused throughout the substance of the slates, shales, and 
marls in contact with these layers of ore ; and the infiltering waters have probably 
conveyed some of this, chiefly in the condition of sulphate of iron, into the ore bed, 
where the carbonate of lime of the fossils would convert it into the peroxide. That 
such has been the origin of part of the iron in the “fossiliferous ore” of some lo¬ 
calities, is indicated by the general richness of the ore in peroxide, in all situations 
where the position of the outcrop, the slope of the ground, and the thickness of the 
covering slate, are favorable to a copious infiltration of the surface water. 1 


In New York tlie belts of Upper Silurian formations sweep 
along tlie hills south of the Mohawk valley westward past Syra¬ 
cuse, Rochester and Niagara towards Detroit. The fossil ore of 
Y (the Clinton group) appears among them as a thin knife-edge 
in Montgomery county and thins away again to a knife-edge 
in Monroe county. In Hall’s district of Western New York 
it is sometimes a valuable ore bed supporting furnaces; but its 
outcrop is fluctuating and uncertain, coming and going in a ca¬ 
pricious manner, sometimes leaving in its place a mere tinge of 
iron red in the upper part of the Lower Clinton Green Shale on 
which it rests, or on the Lower stratum of the Clinton Penta- 
merus limestone on it. The quantity of original iron was of 
course limited and its diffusion coextensive with the Palaeozoic 
continent, so that nothing could be more uncertain than the lo¬ 
cal thickness of its sediment. But as, perhaps, it was not origi¬ 
nally cast down pure, but subsequently filtered from the ferru¬ 
ginous lime- and sand-muds of the Upper Silurian Waters, so in 
its descent to form a permanent bed, it seems to have been ar- 


1 Rogers’s Final Report, vol. ii. p. 727. 



614 


rART ir. -DIVISION II. 


rested sometimes, by the Upper Clinton Green Shale before it 
could reach the Lower. 

Vanuxem reports the iron ore beds, two in number, to range with very little in¬ 
terruption throughout his district. No indication of the existence of the Clinton 
group as a whole is seen east of Squak (Otsquak) creek, at Vanhornsville, where at the 
foot of the dam, blocks containing iron ore and agnostis latus are numerous, over 
green shale containing (Hemicrypterus Clintoni) a trilobite a At Crugar’s Mill, in 
the town of Warren, the ore was once tried, and made good iron. South of Mohawk 
village in the branches of Steele’s creek, the upper bed of ore may be seen in place 
and its fragments in the creek show the encrinal joints weathered out (having been 
replaced by lamellar yellow carbonate of iron) and fragments of Hemicrypterus 
Clintoni , particularly the tail, wuth agnostis latus. South of Utica Wadsworth’s 
ore beds are opened between the upper and lower sandstone quarries. The fossils 
of the sandstone or blackstone at Davis’ quarries, including the palceophycus bilo- 
batus (a sea-weed found by Yanuxem in the same rock -where it rises again in Penn¬ 
sylvania at Bloomsburg and in Ohio) and agnostis latus , are changed into brown 
hematite, “ as if they had originally been sulphuret or carbonate of iron,” says 
Yanuxem ; but in fact the carbonic acid of the waters holding in solution the pro¬ 
toxide of iron would deposit it in the moulds of the fossils while the same acid waters 
were dissolving their carbonate of lime aw r ay. The ore pits between the quarries 
show a red or brownish red “ lenticular clay iron ore,” as Dr. Beck calls it, very 
hard when unaltered, invariably oolitic (fish-roe-like), or in larger size concretions. 
The two beds average a foot or so in thickness and 20 feet apart, the larger con¬ 
cretions most affecting the upper and the oolitic structure the lower bed, in which 
also occur sometimes brownish shales in lens-shaped pieces, and bluish black 
grains of oxide of manganese. Whole fossils or fragments are common in the 
upper but not in the under bed. In the Fourth District (Mr. Hall’s), the calcareous 
shales containing the pentamerus oblongus shell comes in between the two beds of 
ore. The Wadsworth ore bed is the lower one, highly oolitic, with brown shale and 
agnostis latus , and lies almost perfectly flat, as all these formations in New York do. 

On Swift creek, a branch of Sauquoit creek, at Rodger’s machine factory (1841), a 
complete section of the same sandstone, full of the sea-weed, of 35 to 40 feet of shale 
above it, with agnostis latus —of 14 inches of hard greenish grey sandstone over the 
slate—lastly, of a foot of highly oolitic, non-fossiliferous, pure red ore—over which 
lie 20 feet of greenish blue shale, with thin layers of colored sandstone with sea-weed, 
and then the second or upper ore bed, two feet thick, less pure, because somewhat 
calcareous, oolitic and encrinal (or full of stems of stone lilies). In fact the mass 
for a few feet above and below the ore is a mixture of limestone, shale and fossils, 
among which is the flat, radiated shell strophornena Clintonii , and the English shell 
strophomena depjressa , seen here for the first time going west. Above this upper 
bed lie thirty feet or more of greenish blue shale and slate with darker sand¬ 
stones, etc. 3 

Near New Hartford, at Reed’s saw-mill, the two ore beds are twenty feet apart, 
and of the same relative sizes and qualities as before, and the upper bed wfith pecu¬ 
liarly well-preserved shells. On the road hence to Clintor. are numerous diggings 


3 The trimerus delphinocephalus came into existence with this ore bed and existed 
through the Niagara group.— Yanuxem. 

3 See Vanuxem’s description Report, 1842, p. 85. 


THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


615 ' 


in the alluvion over the flat lower bed which is here leached ISTew ITork. 
pure and runs two and a half feet thick. 

In Stebbins’ creek, the upper bed appears on each side of the bridge, oolitic and 
also full of masses, once corals, stone lilies etc. now coated with iron or wholly re¬ 
placed by it. Curiously enough the corals are all changed into the peroxide and the 
encrinites into the carbonate of iron. The lime in the rock continues to increase 
through the town of Clinton, and the ore mass is four feet thick over seventeen feet 
of sandstone, shale etc. and then comes the lower but poorer ore bed, under which 
are five feet of sandstone and shale, and then a third or lowest iron ore bed, hard 
and sandy, ten inches thick, under which are green shales and thin flagstones. It 
will be seen hereafter that the ore formation in Pennsylvania is also triple. 

At Ruddock’s quarry, southeast of Clinton village, the upper bed is seen at the 
bottom mixed with yellowish limestone, without its usual concentration. The same 
is the case at Griffin’s quarry, towards the north of Hamilton College hill, where 
the upper layer of iron-charged encrinal limestone'is five feet thick, overlying 
strata of limestone-shale “ as if kneaded together,” thin limestone with some shale 
and more iron than the uppermost mass, oolitic, coppery-bright, with encrinal discs 
coated with oxide of iron. The whole belongs to the upper ore bed. Dr. Hopkins’s 
quarry, nearer the college, the encrinal limestones and sandstones with iron ore al¬ 
ternate several times, all belonging to the upper ore bed. At Dr. Norton’s quarry 
near by, is the lower ore bed, oolitic, and formerly worked to smelt. 

Between Utica and Vernon, near the Kirkland town line, at Bennet’s Bank, the 
lower ore bed is on top of the hill, with green shale, and shows inside brow*. shale 
and grains of manganese. A great thickness of sandstone below the bed may here 
be studied. Between Manchester and Lairdsville, the Bennet ore appears again, 
with agnostis latus. Opposite Lairdsville on the north, in the ravine, is the upper 
ore bed (under ten feet of shaly sandstone), two feet thick, and much mixed with 
rock, over four feet of fossiliferous sandstone and shale, over twenty feet of alter¬ 
nating shales and thin sandstones and limestones, showing iron ore, under which 
comes the lower bed two feet thick, oblitic, fossiliferous as at Bennet’s and Norton’s. 

Next to Westmoreland furnace, the ore is exposed in many places, particularly 
the lower bed, and when long exposed, pyrites decomposed and the rock softened, 
is very good. 

Hence through the west part of Kirkland, Westmoreland and Verona, the mea¬ 
sures flatten out and show purer outcrops. Near Verona the flat ore covers a large 
surface, and in 1841 was quarried for the Taberg Company on Eames’ land, under 
eight feet of drift, for the Lenox and Constantia furnaces on Person’s land; solid 
ore, twelve to fourteen inches thick. It was struck in a well in Verona. The 
Eames ore underlies a few feet of hard sandstone, full of a coralline fossil, retepora 
Clintonii , the same that exists next the ore. 

At Wolcott furnace, and in the Martville blue green calc shales, which there re¬ 
present the upper ore bed. South of Verona the loose ore of the upper is some¬ 
times seen, with geodes in the blocks and a peach-bloom like the arseniate of cobalt, 
and fragments of pentamerus oblongus and atrypot ajfinis (the lowest appearance of 
an atrypa known). 

From Verona to Madison county the country is flat and marshy and Lake Oneida 
is excavated in the Clinton group. In Madison county therefore the first locality of 
the ore is on the Lakehead-Conastota road at Donelly’s, where masses of the lower 
ore bed are ploughed out, an island-like patch of the red rock, a hundred acres in 
extent, surrounded by swamp land. The ore mined here is calcareous, needing a 



616 


PART IT.-DIVISION II. 


sand-clay flux to smelt it, and extraordinarily full of fossils, pentamerus oblongus, 
atrypa affinis strophomena depressa, delthyris radiatis. 

In Joselin’s corners the ore appears between the road and the lake, 2 feet thick, 
in two layers of several hundred feet horizontal outcrop, smelted formerly at Con- 
stantia furnace and not much liked. Further west on the lake shore at R. Bush- 
nell’s, several small seams appear in the sandstone. It crosses the Seneca river at 
the rifts between Granby and the outlet; exists probably on the road to Hannibal- 
ville at Bentley’s quarry ; and on little Sodus creek between Martville and the mill. 
The last place in Vanuxem’s district where he saw the ore is west of Sterlingtown 
in Van Patten s fields. 4 

Its greatest thickness in Wayne county, 2 feet, is at Ontario town. Between 
this and the Genesee river, twenty miles, its outcrop covered by a thin spread of 
drift, is seldom seen. On the Genesee it is about 14 inches thick, and further west 
it was nowhere seen by Hall except as a discoloration of the ferruginous rock above. 
It is absent in the Medina, Alfnon, Lockport, and other good sections. Hall suggests 
that this thinning west may be indicative of an eastern origin, hinting at the bteds 
of specular and micaceous ores of northern New York. But its more probable 
origin he thinks may be decomposition of sulphuret of iron ; while as Vanuxem’s 
facts go to show, the oolitic form may be due to thermal waters. It is remarkable 
that the upper second bed of ore, which occurs at a few places, but never of a 
workable size, never occurs at the places where the lower bed exists in force. 
This is not true of the Pennsylvania deposits as will be stated hereafter. 

The Walcott ore bed, six miles east of the furnace, is as Hall thinks the upper 
bed, and is here much thicker than elsewhere. At the furnace itself the upper bed 
is but a few inches thick, associated with impure limestones, and the lower bed is 
absent. The openings between this and Sodus point seem to be all of them in the 
upper bed. At the Shaker village at Sodus point large fragments of ore were 
found belonging to the upper bed for the place of the lower bed is seen and vacant. 
West of this the upper bed is not seen. The ore got north of Sodus point and 
in Ontario town is evidently from the lower bed. 


In Pennsylvania the ore reappears from beneath the great 
area of Devonian and Carboniferous rocks (Till XIII), round 
the eastern or Catskill mountain end of which, along the Hud¬ 
son valley and Xewburgli-Stroudshurg-Orwigsburg valley, it 
does not show itself in any thickness, and often not at all. 
Blocks of the lower red sandy ore were picked up by the author 
in 1839 at many places along the northern slope of the Blue 
or Kittatinny mountain, especially upon the anticlinals of the 
Little Schuylkill; but no fossil ore has ever been found upon this 
its most southern outcrop between Newburgh on the Hudson to 
the Susquehanna Gap above Harrisburgh. Nor after crossing 
the Susquehanna does it assume importance until far into 
middle Pennsylvania, as will appear directly. 


4 Report of 1842, p. 90. 



THE DYEST0NE FOSSIL ORE. 


617 


At Danville and Bloomsburg, on tlie broad 
back of Montour’s ridge, which lifts a double enns Y vania* 
line of it to the surface, further to the north; and at Milton, 
Wilksbarre, Altoona, Frankstown and Cumberland, on the north 
flank of the Bald Eagle its next great line of outcrop, the case 
is different. 

At the Narrows two miles below Danville the ore sandstone is seen S feet thick, 
calcareous, separating the upper and lower shales ; in the lower shales are the ore 
beds, too thin to work, for which Chulasky furnace was built. Westward of this 
the ores are not workable. Towards Danville the sandstone ore breasts up above 
water level 200 yards, the fossil ore much less. East of Danville there is not much 
difference between the sandstone ore and an ore in the lowest slates of the series; 
each is a sandstone infused with peroxide of iron, and including numerous small 
flat fragments of greenish slate, weathering out and having in cross fracture little 
lens-shaped holes, a characteristic mark of these ore beds in many places. This 
lowest ore bed of all is only 6 or 8 inches thick, except at Wood’s miue on the 
north slope four miles east of Danville where the principal layer is from 18 to 30 
inches thick, but not all equally rich; at the Bittenbendex mine 1J mile further 
east it is again but 8 inches, and rich, mixing well with the soft and hard ores 
above it in the series. At 4 miles of outcrop and 60 yards breasting there will be 
of this ore 350,000 tons. The iron sandstone girdles the mountain with its outcrop, 
but nowhere yields its central ore in a workable shape; the deposit is too poor. 
At Hemlock creek it spans the end of the mountain in a fine high arch, but its ore 
is poor. 

Professor Rogers gives tlie following section of the Upper 
Silurian (Clinton, Surgent) No. V red shales in which the beds 


of ore occur: 

Red shale, with a few green, no fossils. 380 feet. 

Red and green shales alternately. 60 feet. 

Upper calcareous shales, sandy, fissile, often highly fossiliferous, with 
fossil limestones 1 to 12 inches thick. Fossils: Beyrickia , Atrypa, 

Avicula , Strophornence, Euomphalus , Encrini , Eavosites , etc. 160 feet. 

Ore Sandstone, calcareous, tough, with thin shales.. 8 feet. 

Lower calcareous shales, green, fissile, with thin limestone plates and 
eight or nine thicker, all fossiliferous, and with the 'Fossil Ore band 
1..4 thick 25 feet from the bottom. 60 feet. 

Upper Slate, green, fissile with thin clay sandstones, and the only fossil is 

Buthotrephis gracilis .. .. 50 feet. 

Iron Sandstone, with its Hard Ore, 1..4 thick. 58 feet. 

Lower Slate, green, weathering yellow, sandy, compact or fissile, with its 
Ore band about half way down its thickness, and the Clinton fossil 
Buthotrephis gracilis throughout it.700 feet. 


These Lower Slates are distinguished frbm the upper by being 
more compact. In their midst are one or two layers of sand¬ 
stone ferruginous enough sometimes to mine. These are the 
lowest and hardest ores, 300 or 400 feet above the great white 










618 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


sandstone Formation IY which forms the core of the moun¬ 
tain and the ribs and crests of most of the mountains of middle 
Pennsylvania. The Iron /Sandstone next above is a triple forma¬ 
tion of ponderous layers of red argillaceous and ferruginous 
sand rocks inclosing a middle member of green sandy slate, the 
sandstones thickening eastward. The lower member sometimes 
two or three layers of workable iron* ore, and the whole forma¬ 
tion marks its outcrop on the surface by a ragged ridge. The 
Upper Slates increase in thickness eastward. These form the 
lower or slate divisions of For. Y. The next or middle division 
was formerly called the marly layers of Y. 

The Lower Calcareous Shales graduate into the Slates 
below them so that the partition lines are not very exact, but 
are too well marked as a formation by numerous thin grey 
limestone layers and fossils to be overlooked. These contain the 
famous Fossil Ore Bands, variable in number, thickness, and 
distance asunder, because consisting really of nothing more than 
some of the limestone layers more highly charged with peroxide 
of iron than the rest. The principal layer varies from 14 to 20 
inches thick along the Southern or Susquehanna slope of the 
mountain, where it has been chiefly mined, and at its eastern 
end, where the axis sinks and carries the formation slowly down 
with it beneath the Berwick and Wapwallopen country to the 
east.—The Ore Sandstone, with its encrini, is here a thinner 
rock than in Middle Pennsylvania, and not so good a landmark 
therefore for the ore.— The Upper Calcareous Shales have 
also their thin beds of fossil limestone (some of which, near Dan¬ 
ville, are massive enough to quarry, but too clayey and magne¬ 
sian for a flux) but no ore, although the lower layers are ferru¬ 
ginous and become good ore beds in Middle Pennsylvania. 5 

The marly shales form the upper or third division of the for¬ 
mation, their lower (surgent) layers being red and green and 
red 380 feet, the middle (scalent) layers variegated, the upper 
(scalent) layers grey, 1,300 feet, with massive limestones 20 or 
30 feet thick, and introducing us to the Limestones of Forma¬ 
tion YI (Scalent and Premeridian of Kogers, Lower Helderburg 
of New York.) * 

The ridge at Hemlock creek is a double anticlinal or an 
anticlinal fallen in a little at the summit. The ore rises on each 

8 Final Report, i. 435 + . 


THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


619 


flank, and is mined at tlie gaps. The outcrop of the limestone 
ore beds, for some distance in, is weathered to a soft red porous 
mass like bog ore full of more or less distinct small fossils. The 
limestone ore within is hard, tough, breaking along the planes 
of innumerable small shells and rings (the joints of encrinal foot¬ 
stalks or stone lilies) glittering with an enamel of black or red¬ 
dish-black oxide of iron, and the pearly white scale-like sepa¬ 
rated films of shells, mixed with specks and fossil forms of the red 
oxide where at innumerable points the attack of the air and 
w r ater had begun. The fossils are all in a perfect condition, 
except that the encrinal columns have fallen to pieces, and this 
fact would go to show, when taken in connection with the im¬ 
mense extent of the deposit and the absence of coralline masses, 
that the ocean in which the iron was disseminated and precipi¬ 
tated was comparatively deep. Yet the shore could not have 
been very far off to the southeast, for the ore is not found along 
the Blue mountain from the Delaware Water Gap to the Sus¬ 
quehanna. And Formation YII was in great part a beach for¬ 
mation, containing at Cumberland in Maryland, and in Lewis 
county in Southern Virginia, masses of fossils rolled upon a 
beach, as Hall will show. Some wide, slow oceanic current 
from an unknown quarter, charged the American Upper Silu¬ 
rian Ocean with a fine ferruginous calcareous sandy mud, which 
settled in mass, and then adjusted its constituent elements in 
layers according to their insolubility, the carbonate of lime by 
itself first, and the fine ferruginous sandmud by itself next, from 
which the iron separated itself afterwards and fell upon the 
limestone beds to convert them into ore; the fossils acting as 
determining horizons for the segregation of the limestone first 
and the iron afterwards. 

The amount of this ore Mr. Rogers calculates at 4 miles outcrop, 200 yards 
breast 15 inches thick, giving 1,400,000 tons above water level. For the fossil- 
iferous ore Mr. Rogers calculates a workable outcrop of eight miles on each side of 
the ridge, an average depth of 30 yards for the soft ore, equal to 210,000 tons, 
and admitting the hard limestone body of the bed to be workable another 30 yards 
down, the whole amount is not over 400,000 tons. The whole possible amount of 
workable ores of V in Montour’s ridge above water level will then be somewhat 
over 3,500,000, the soft ore making about one-third, which is about the froportion 
of its use in the furnaces. He adds that twenty furnaces 6 were running on the 

6 In 1857 fourteen anthracite furnaces ran on this ore wholly (A 95, 96, 101 to 112), 
and eleven anthracite furnaces mixed it with magnetic alone (97 to 100, 113), or browm 


620 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


ore at the rate of say 180,000 tons of soft ore per annum, which wotfld exhaust the 
region above water level in twenty years. This, a note says, was written in 1847, 
and he goes on to advise the careful husbanding of the soft ore as the principal 
wealth and sine qua non or “ present key to the remaining riches of the region.” 7 

Mr. Rogers adds, on page 729 of his second volume : But I must here advert to 
another much more instrumental cause of inequality in the proportion of iron, com¬ 
pared with the other constituents—I mean the removal , by infiltrating water, of a 
part or all of the soluble portion of the ore, chiefly its carbonate of lime, both diffused 
and in the shape of innumerable organic remains. The fossils, chiefly shells and 
joints of the Crinoidea, constitute in many instances fully one-half of the weight 
of the ore in its original unaltered condition, as the reader can ascertain by in¬ 
specting the Table of Analysis of the Surgent Fossiliferous ores, and comparing the 
amount of carbonate of lime of the compact specimens with that of the soft or 
porous ones. It is obvious that a given bulk of the ore must retain, after the ab¬ 
straction of this large quantity of calcareous matter, very nearly twice its former 
percentage by weight of its principal ingredient, the peroxide of iron. A study 
of the circumstances which chiefly influence or control this dissolution of the car¬ 
bonate of lime is therefore of the highest practical importance, since only through 
a competent knowledge and application of these conditions to his particular locali¬ 
ties can the proprietor of a tract of this ore foresee the relative amount of the soft 
or chiefly valuable variety which his ground is likely to contain. The whole value 
of the Surgent ore beds, so far as the quality of the fossiliferous ore is concerned, 
depends upon the depth below its outcrop to which the dissolving process has ex¬ 
tended ; for experience has now confirmed the views which I ventured to express 
in my annual reports, that the stratum cannot be profitably mined, in the present 
condition of the iron manufacture, much below the level to which this surface action 
has penetrated. 

What, then, are the conditions of outcrop that principally promote the thorough 
and extensive filtration of the waters along the slope of the ore stratum ? The most 
favorable state of things is a coincidence in the dip of the ore bed with the incli¬ 
nation of the ground above it. In this case, nearly the whole of the rain which 
falls upon the hill-side finally penetrates to the layer of ore, and passing through 
the thin covering of slates, carries with it an additional amount of oxide of iron. 
A strict parallelism between the ore bed and the surface seldom prevails over any 
considerable tract, almost never on the side of an anticlinal or monoclinal ridge, 
and scarcely anywhere but at the end of a broad anticlinal ridge like that which 
terminates Montour’s ridge east of Bloomsburg, where there is a truly extraordi¬ 
nary quantity of the softest and richest ore arching the point of the hill in a gentle 
curve, and nowhere overlaid by a thicker covering than from 10 to 20 feet of the 
slate. Where the dip of the ore is considerably steeper than the slope of the 
surface, the thickness of the overlying rocks rapidly increases as the bed descends, 
until its mass becomes too great to be penetrable by the atmospheric waters. In 
all such cases the ore, as we trace it downwards, grows progressively less soft, 
porous, and rich in iron, more and more of the substance of the fossils remaining 
undissolved, until we reach a point at which the stratum is in its original con- 

hematite alone (92, 93, 114, 115), or with both (91, 94), but three of the number ob¬ 
tained theirs from another region. A charcoal furnace (E 81) in Maryland, and five 
others (E104 to 108) in the neighborhood used it. See Bulletin tables. 

7 Final Report, pp. 443 to 450. 


THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


621 


dition, with its maximum quantity of the carbonate of lime, and the: efore its mini¬ 
mum of peroxide of iron. It should be observed that this limit is by no means as 
far beneath the outcrop, even under the moderate dip of 30°, with the surface 
sloping 15°, as many persons imagine. Much observation along the ore belts of 
Montour’s ridge and other districts, persuades me that, under these conditions, the 
soft ore ceases, on the average, at a distance of 30 or 40 yards from its actual out¬ 
crop. Where the bed of fossiliferous ore dips into the hill, or in a direction con¬ 
trary to the slope of the ground, the surface-water flows across its outcrop without 
entering it, and the stratum in this case receives a very small supply of infiltering 
water, so that not unfrequently the ore is compact, and full of its organic remains, 
to withiu a few feet of the soil. 

To those interested in the many iron furnaces now erected, which depend, in part 
at least, for their supply, and mainly for the quality of their iron, upon this admir¬ 
able variety of ore, the following calculations, based upon the foregoing data, will 
not be without their value. Assuming the average thickness of the main bed of 
the fossiliferous ore to be 16 or 18 inches, each square yard of the stratum will con¬ 
tain about one ton ; and if the average width of the breast of soft ore be taken at 35 
yards, then one mile of continuous outcrop must furnish the amount of 61,600 tons. 
It should be borne in mind, however, that several circumstances, besides the mere 
relative slope of the ore and of the surface, may influence the amount of percolation, 
and produce locally wide deviations from the above estimated width of the soft out¬ 
crop ore. Such are especially any irregularities in the contour of the ground, in the 
form of ravines, or knolls and swells ; and again, any local contortions or disloca¬ 
tions in the strata. In regard to the silicious ore beds of the Surgent series, both 
those of the iron sandstone and the Surgent older slate, the quality of the ore is 
very uniform, being but little influenced by the accident of proximity to the surface. 
Possessing but few fossils, and only a comparatively small proportion of calcareous 
matter, these ores are not susceptible of the purifying process so essential to the 
so-called “ fossiliferous ores and hence, so far as their richness in iron is in 
question, it is of small importance what way the strata dip in relation to the slope 
of the surface. The direction of the dip will much affect, however, the extent to 
which the outcrop of the bed may be uncovered, but can thus influence only to a 
trivial extent the facility and cheapness with which it may be mined. When the 
“hard ore” is of equal or nearly equal thickness with the “fossiliferous ore,” and 
contains as much as 30 per cent of iron, it is obvious that it will long outlast the 
latter in most of the localities where at present they both abound. Not deterio¬ 
rating materially as it descends, and outcropping higher upon the flanks of the 
ridges, in consequence of its holding a lower place in the series, the supply of this 
variety of ore may be regarded as liable to few fluctuations, and to be almost inex¬ 
haustible. The average cost of mining the soft fossiliferous ore, at and near its 
outcrop, exceeds $2 per ton, while that of removing the “ block ore ” of the iron 
sandstone is from $1 25 to $1 75 per ton. 

Mr. Rogers has added the analyse's of these ores of Y, made 
during the progress of the survey, to the essay quoted above, in 
the form of the following table : 


622 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


TABLE OF ANALYSES OF 


Locality and Variety. 

Peroxide 
of iron. 

Oxide 
of Man¬ 
ganese. 

Alumina. 

Silica 

and 

Insol. 

Matter. 

1. Smith’s Gap, Kittatinny Mt., Dauphin Co.. 

2. Danville, Columbia County (Levant iron 

68.00 

• • « • 

6 60 

13.30 




23.77 

sandstone). 

70.63 

• • • • 

.57 

6. Danville (calcareous fossiliferous ore). 

30.34 

a trace 

• • • • 

2.64 

* 7. Bloomsburg (compact calcareous, fossil- 





iferous ore). 

61.30 


a trace 

2.80 

8. Bloomsburg (soft, porous, fossiferous ore) . 

85.10 

.... 

5 0 

7.10 

9. Landisburg, Perry Co. (fossiliferous ore).. 

76.45 

1 50 

1.25 

14.40 

3. Turtle Creek, Union Co. (Levant iron sand- 





stone)... 

37.64 

• • • • 

a trace 

59.0 

10. Mifflin, Juniata Co. (fossiliferous ore). 

70.0 

a trace 

a trace 

24.24 

4. Little Cove, Franklin Co. (Levant iron 





sandstone). 

30.38 

• • • • 

1.20 

67.0 

11. Little Cove N.W. side, 4|- miles N. of 





Warren Iron Works (fossiliferous ore).... 

83.0 

a trace 

6.0 

5.3 

5. Dickey’s Mt., N.W. side, half a mile S.W. 
of Hanover Forge, Bedford Co. (Levant 





iron sandstone). 

52.0 

a trace 

a trace 

39.3 

12. Matilda Furnace, near Jack’s Narrows, 





Huntingdon Co. 

74.76 

a trace 

5 06 

13.04 

13. Matilda Furnace (lower part of the same).. 

44.07 

a trace 

1.39 

52.33 

14. Lick Hill, Woodcock Valley, Bedford Co. 





(used at Hopewell Furnace). 

46.50 
partCarb. 
of Iron. 

• • • • 

4.80 

16.30 

15. Hopewell Furnace Mine, Bedford Co. 





(softest kind). 

78.05 

.68 

4.50 

13.85 

16. Hopewell Furnace Mine (same bed, com- 





pact kind). 

55.2 

.5 

1.0 

8.8 

17. Near Barre Forge, Huntingdon Co. (lower 





part of vein). 

43.55 
Prot. Carb. 
Iron, 3.56. 

.50 

.50 

3.0 

18. N.E. of Barre Forge (average of the vein). 

57.0 

.60 

1.40 

7.50 


West of the Susquehanna, the ore of V is now mined and used at Union fur¬ 
nace (A 113). A good ore bed, 12 inches thick, horizontal, on the Buffalo axis, four 
miles west of New Columbia, was once worked, but the region along the foot of 
Jack’s mountain where the outcrop runs does not open well. Extensive openings 
half a mile southwest of Miller’s saw-mill in brown hematite and other similar banks 
belong to the zigzag outcrops of Formation VI. 8 

8 McKinley in Final Report, p. 459. 





























THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


623 


THE SURGEHT OKES. 


Water. 

Occasional 

Ingredients. 

Loss. 

Metallic 
Iron 
in 100 
Parts. 

1 

Description of the Ores. 

11.70 

• • • • 

.40 

47.06 

Dark mottled-brown, coarse-grained, sandy- 
looking ore, imbedded in brown hematite. 

2.57 

Carb. of Lime 
2.46 

• • • 

48.96 

Brick-red, somewhat fossiliferous, has the 
grain and aspect of a red sandstone Called 
the “ hard ore.” 

1.80 

Car. Lime 62.43 
Car. Mag. 2.79 

• • • 

21.03 

Dark purplish-brown, slaty, micaceous, fossil¬ 
iferous. 

2.20 

Car. Lime 33.17 

.53 

43.00 

Very similar to the last. 

2.10 

Carb. Lime, a 
trace 

.40 

60.00 

Dark, reddish-brown, soft, gives a red pow¬ 
der, is full of pits and casts of fossils 

5.70 

• • • • 

.70 

53.51 

Dull brown, slaty, micaceous, highly fossili¬ 
ferous. 

3.20 

• • • • 

.16 

26.32 

Pink color, compact, coarse, and silicious, 
resembles the “ hard ore ” of Danville. 

5.40 

• • • • 

.40 

51.10 

Chestnut-brown, coarse, slaty, granular, mica¬ 
ceous, and fossiliferous. 

Dark red and brown, granular and sandy, looks 
like a coarse red sandstone; is the “ hard 
ore.” 

1.42 

• • • • 

• • • 

21.06 

5.1 

Lime, 0.5 

• • • 

58.1 

Reddish-brown, laminated, porous, fossil¬ 
iferous 

9.0 

• • • • 

• • • 

36.4 

Dark brown, coarse, earthy; variety, Levant 
iron sandstone. 

3.82 

Lime 1.35, un¬ 
determined 
matter 2.11, 

• • • 

51.84 

Reddish-brown, powder red, porous, fossil¬ 
iferous (upper part of fossiliferous ore). 

2.62 

Lime 0 49 

• • • 

30.56 

Brown, fracture rectangular, brown oxide of 
iron, cementing coarse grains of sand (lower 
part of fossiliferous ore). 

1.0 

Car. Lime 31.01 

.39 

27.72 

Pale-red, highly fossiliferous; carbonate of 
lime of fossils visible. 

3.0 

A trace of Lime 

• * » 

54.95 

Brown, powder purple-brown, soft and brittle, 
fossiliferous, has some red micaceous oxide. 

2.5 

Car. Lime 31.4 

.6 

38 64 

Reddish-grey; powder light brown; mica¬ 
ceous, fossiliferous. 

1.50 

Car. Lime 46.76 

.63 

32 2 

Reddish-grey, fossiliferous; the fossils not all 
dissolved out. 

2.0 

Car.Lime 32.10 

• • • 

39 9 

. 


South of Jack’s mountain is a wide stretch of hill country in Perry and 
Juniata counties crossed by great and small waves, which bring up, in innumerable 
zigzags, the Upper Silurian rocks of V along the feet of the bounding and subdivid¬ 
ing mountains of IY. Dr. Henderson examined and described this country with 
singular precision and the substance, of his report on its fossil ore is to be found m 
Rogers’s Final Report, pp. 336—344. 

Along the flank and end of Shade mountain northwest of Selins grove in 
















624 


PAST II.-DIVISION II. 


Union county runs the triple-crested Chestnut ridge, two of the crests formed of the 
ore sandstone and the third of the lower slates, but shows no ore. The anticlinal 
Slenderdale ridge stretches from four miles northeast of McAllisterstown to the Ju¬ 
niata fourteen miles, with the iron and ore sandstones dipping 20° southeast and 70° 
northwest, and shows at but one place the pure fossil ore 6 inches thick under 
heavy beds of greyish-brown sandstone, the true ore sandstone; of course this is a 
local deposit quite different from the universal ferruginous and worthless upper layer. 
In the Long Narrows of Lewistown, a sharp synclinal basin through which the Ju¬ 
niata flows, the ore must be under the river. 

The region of Mifflintown has the iron sandstone only a few feet thick, the ore 
sandstone being 20 to 30 feet thick, some of its layers white, hard and fine grained, 
the rest brown ferruginous, a few calcareous and fossiliferous. It forms a ridge 
along the mountain side projecting in long barbs beyond their anticlinal ends. The 
ore forms the uppermost layer, as in some of the Mifflin county localities. As a cal¬ 
careous sandstone highly impregnated with iron its value is small over all Juniata 
and the lower end of Huntingdon counties. Above it are a few beds of fossiliferous 
limestone alternating with shale. The ore is mined where the river cuts across the 
Mifflintown hills. 

In Pfout’s valley the ore is oolitic , but with numerous well defined fossils; these 
disappear as the bed is traced southwestward along the base of Tuscarora mountain 
into Liberty valley, the ore remaining for a while purely oolitic, and then graduating 
into the sandy ore of Juniata county. Everywhere it overlies about two feet the 
ore sandstone. At the one locality where the fossiliferous form was found (at the 
north base of the Kittatinny mountain at the southern limit of the region,) it looked 
like Catawissa or Danville ore and had the large encrinal rings so common there. 
In Pfout’s valley two miles northeast of Middletown, the compact oolitic ore bed 
8 or 10 inches thick lies flat and is stripped. From Brant’s mine it is traceable to 
the Juniata, sometimes steeply dipping and is mined half a mile above Millerstown. 
On the northwest side of Raccoon valley the fossiliferous ore ranges along the 
southeast flank of the ore sandstone ridge, is reddish-brown, compact, oolitic with 
few or no fossils, thickness small. Northwest of Ikesburg the ore sandstone, ore 
and iron sandstone crop high up the mountain slope with a 50° southeast dip. The 
iron sandstone at Linn's mill makes a high ridge, in prolongation of Conecocheague 
mountain, with oolitic ore a few inches thick. Liberty valley is bounded on the 
northwest by the Tuscarora axis and a rugged ore sandstone ridge with poor ore, 
dipping 40° southeast; at the northeast end of the valley the ore seems already to 
be passing from its oolitic to its sandstone form ; it is oolitic with few or no fossils 
along the southeast flank of Conecocheague mountain. Southeast of Germantown 
Buck ridge arises gradually with an ore sandstone crest between two flanks of ore 
sandstone; the ridge is 4 miles long by 200 feet high at its highest point. Opposite 
Andersontown Sherman’s creek cuts three times through a similar ridge 150 feet 
high and ten miles long without a sign of fossil ore. On Bower's mountain no fossil 
ore was seen. Throughout the Sherman creek country it is rarely seen and is 
then of no value. The XVII anticlinal east of Landisburg and south of Perry fur¬ 
nace throws the iron sandstone up around the east end of Pilot Hill (Formation 
IV) as the crest of a curious isolated lunar ridge. The XIV and XV anticlinals flat¬ 
ten out Shceffer’s valley southeast of Bowen’s mountain, but produce no ore. In 
Kennedy’s valley the iron sandstone forms rugged knobs but has no fossil ore. 
Nor is there any fossil ore along the Blue (or Kittatinny) mountain from the Susque¬ 
hanna gap to McClure’s gap; nor in South Horse valley. 


THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


625 


Southwest of the Juniata at Mifflentown, two long thin curving parallel canoe¬ 
shaped anticlinal mountains, Blue Ridge and Black Log, contain the red shales of V 
with the fossil ore upon their flanks and ends. The ore sandstone forms a distinct 
ridge at the Juniata, soon lost in the flanks of Blue Ridge. At Hardy’s bank the 
ore was sandy and poor, 18 or 20 inches thick (tried at Montebello furnace), just 
over the highest layer of ore sandstone. Forge ridge, forking over the east end of 
Blacklog mountain, is made of iron sandstone; the ore sandstone 20 feet thick rests 
on its flanks and is seen at Jacob’s ore bank on the river above Mifflintown. The 
ore itself rests on the sandstone as a heavy, square-splitting layer 2 feet thick, red 
and fossiliferous, very silicious and full of silex crystals at the joints. Two lines 
of outcrop traverse Licking Creek Valley from end to end, but no good ore is 
found. 

Tuscarora mountain is bordered by the ore on both sides but it exists only in 
a state of ferruginous sand rock. No ore is seen at Shade gap nor at the Burnt 
Cabins although the sandstone is 20 to 30 feet thick and well exposed. 

The great Lewistown or middle Juniata Valley is on the contrary rich in ore, 
brought up by numerous anticlinals, as well as on the southern flank of Jack’s 
mountain. The Lower or block ore in the lower slates of V, light brown and some- 
tines slaty, is usually too silicious to work ; it is abundant along the base of 
Shade mountain and near Middleburg, 1£ miles east of Beaver furnace, where it 
is seven feet thick and very good, cropping out within 100 yards of the upper or 
fossil ore and dipping 30° north, over the red and grey ore sandstone 30 feet thick. 
Under this sandstone another stratum outcrops (40 yards across the surface from 
the block ore) a still lower stratum of encrinal birdeye ore 12 inches thick. In this 
eastern division of the Lewistown Valley the fossil ore does not seem to exist in 
force, and when found is a granular quartz rock with a yellowish brown ferruginous 
cement, weathering in rounded fragments. One belt of it ranges near the base of 
Shade and the other near that of Jack’s mountain towards the southwest, the latter 
bending round the southwest end of Jack’s mountain returning along the northern 
side of Standing Stone, sweeps around in a broad curve along the foot of Tussey 
mountain, southwest, past Huntingdon and Bedford into Maryland and Virginia. 

Workable ore is not seen along Shade mountain between near Beavertown and 
Lewistown. 1 West of Lewistown in Furguson’s valley it occurs and is used by 
the anthracite furnaces A 92 and A 93. The anticlinal ridge trom Lewistown 
back of Waynesburg is formed by the ore sandstone with its ore, 150 feet 
high, wide and barren; the ore lying directly on the sand rock and under olive- 
colored shales; only 4 to 5 inches thick in some places but easily stripped, dipping 
10° to 20°. Sometimes there are 2 layers each 2 to 3 inches thick as at Stroud's 
mill east of which they are 6 inches thick and lie horizontal. At Waynesburg the 
dying axis lets it gently down. Below Waynesburg the river and canal expose two 
layers only 2 inches thick, hard and calcareous. Beyond Brightfield’s run at Wor- 
rell’s banks a layer 3 to 5 inches rests on the sandstone, 15° S.E. 

Along Blue Ridge runs the outcrop of the sandstone, as e. g. through the Blue 
Rock cliff* east of Waynesburg, where it is 30 feet thick with calcareous layers, and 
the fossil ore, instead of being on top of it, is in its midst, thin, hard, calcareous, 
reddish brown, dipping 55° N.W.—At the southwest end of Blue Ridge mountain 
in Germany valley, the sandstones thicken and inclose three layers of fossil ore 
each 5 or 6 inches thick, difficult to mine, dipping 40° southeast. 

At Matilda furnace a lower layer 8 inches thick rests on the top of the sand* 

9 Final Report, pp. 370-371. 1 F. R., p. 411. 


40 


626 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


stone, and is so sandy as to produce out of 6 tons but 1 ton of metal, with 600 
bushels of charcoal, although it looks like other fossil ore. Four inches of olive 
shale separates from an upper layer 10 inches thick of good fossil ore, yielding 
to 1. 

In the Little Cove near the Maryland line the iron sandstone and ore 
sandstones are enlarged to 30 or 40 feet thick each, separated by 75 feet of olive 
and buff slates, in which the fossil ore occurs. Some of the sandstones have grown 
very massive; the rock is white, fine-grained and hard with fucoidal impressions 
on the surface; the iron sandstone is dark red, massive, parted with red shale, 
and also pitted with lenticular fragments of red shale, washing out. On the west 
side of the basin they dip 30° S.E. and stand vertical on the other. 2 

Returning to the Juniata Huntingdon Region the ore sandstone ridges line 
the base of Standing Stone and Tussey’s mountain from the Lewistown-Bellefonte 
turnpike to the Maryland line and so on into Virginia; the calcareous ore shales 
forming real clay limestone beds. At Goshen run gap east of Huntingdon in Stone 
mountain in the lower slates, ore was supposed to be struck. The sandstone is 
thinner here than in the Lewistown valley, soft, compact yellowish grey, rotting 
soon, and full of encrinites, underlying the ore at Dorsey’s and at Green’s banks, 
but apparently overlying another bed of ore at other places. On the canal below 
Huntingdon the ore was found four inches thick, 75° dip 225 feet below the bottom 
of the red shale. At the head of Standing Stone creek, Alexander and Diarmid 
found on an anticlinal from the Seven mountains soft fossil ore 20 to 30 inches 
thick. Dorsey and Green’s principal banks half a mile northeast of the forge shows 
ore 18 inches thick, hard, calcareous, square, 40 per cent, 25° S. 40° E. over olive 
shale and under massive encrinitic sandstone. Further southwest a 32 per cent ore 
overlies the sandstone. The ore-outcrop zigzags along the base of Tussey moun¬ 
tain north of Huntingdon over numerous short anticlinals issuing in echelon 
from the mountain; the last one crosses the little Juniata at the forge and the 
main Juniata one mile west of Alexandria, continuing thence along Hartzlog and 
Woodcock valley , 3 where it sulfers smaller flexures nearly parallel with the 
mountain, which repeat its outcrop. Between McConnelstown and Yellow creek it 
has been opened lately in many places, with a rich soft outcrop in several layers, 
averaging ten or twelve inches. Savage’s banks opposite Trough creek is said to 
have yielded 20 to 24 inches of ore under the encrinitic sandstone, more slaty and 
more fossiliferous than at Danville. At Yellow creek opposite Hopewell furnace 
the outcrop doubles, is 2 feet thick, and is itself double with sometimes 8 feet of 
shale separating its two members, the lower of which is hard calcareous, the upper 
analyzed 55 per cent iron at the surface and 38£ below the softened outcrop. All 
along Tussey mountain the dip is disposed to be steep, =: 30° to 50° S.E. At 
Davis’ banks south of Yellow creek the ore is still 2 feet thick in the upper stratum 
and 22 inches in the lower—eight feet apart. Burkett’s and McDowell’s banks 
show three beds, the uppermost three feet thick under olive slate and over sparry 
sandy limestone 8 feet thick, under which lies the middle ore bed, thin, calcareous, 
silicious, over fossiliferous olive shale one foot thick, under which is the lowest ore 
bed 2 feet thick, the best ore of the three, 27.72 per cent iron. On the creek above 
are seen two beds the thick upper bed 22 inches, very calcareous, 30° west. At 
Cogan’s banks ten miles from Bedford forge a brown cellular stratum 4 feet thick 
was reached by a shaft 100 feet deep. Judge Dougherty of Bedford is said to 
have opened the outcrop (1858) along the mountain foot, and proved good ore in 

» F. R., p. 416. s F> R>? p> 516> 


THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


627 


many places. The encrinitic ore sandstone, 4 * separates from the mountain slope on 
passing Bloody Run and increases in height as a separate ridge until it enters 
Maryland, covered with great ochreous blocks. 

The last Outcrop of the Fossil ore before sinking be¬ 
neath the great coal regions to emerge in middle New 
York and middle Ohio, runs along the north foot of the Muncy, 
Bald Eagle, Dunning or Will’s mountain, from Muncy past 
Bellefonte, Altoona and Hollidaysburg to Cumberland in Mary¬ 
land. It is a grand curve broken at Hollidaysburg by a recess 
and near the Maryland line by some anticlinal axes. Every¬ 
where except near Hollidaysburg the rocks are steep, sometimes 
nearly vertical. At the southeast end and not far therefore 
from Danville, Mr. McKinley reports the following section 6 
translated by Mr. Rogers into his own nomenclature thus: 
Meridian sandstone (VII Oriskany), very thin. 

Slates, upper cherty, lower slialy buff, 

Premeridian limestone (VI lower Ilelderburg) . 

Scalent limestone, thin, blue, Cytherina alta, 

Grey marls (Moore’s quarry Lewisburg), . 

Blue shales; thin limes ; black slates 
Grey marls, green, purple; flag limestones 
Blood spot shale, below Milton 
Variegated marls, red and green, Muncy bridge 
Surgent red shale ...... 

Upper Calcareous shale 


60 feet 


Cytherina 
Atrypa 
Avicula J 




Grey and greenish shale . 

Limestone, Beyrichia, Calamopora . 

Greenish and buff slates 

Slates and ferrug. limes ; 4 or 5 impure ore beds, 

Lower calcareous shale, 5 miles below Jersey shore 
Greenish shale, calc, bands, Agnostis hemicripterus, 

Upper slate, branching fucoids. and small fucoid, 

Iron sandstone, ore bed, of unknown place and size 

Lower slate ....... 

The lower silicious ore is discoverable at many points along 
the base of the Bald Eagle mountain and has been used at 
Margaretta furnace at Williamsport lately. In Bald Eagle 


150 

u 

100 

a 

300? 

a 

200 + 

u 

100? 

u 

1000? 

a 

20 

u 

350 

a 

230 

a 

•40 

a 

65 

a 

65 

u 

60 

a 

110 

a 

700 



4 According to the assistant geologist Dr. Jackson, who reports to Mr. Rogers in the 

Final Report, p. 525. 

6 Final Report i. p. 535. 








628 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


creek valley at Howard Iron Works it has been successfully 
mined, outcropping half way up the mountain and dipping 70 c 
H. 30° W. 60 yards east or under the fossil ore. In 1852 it was 
22 inches thick and about 28 per cent iron. The Iron Sand¬ 
stone outcrops higher up the mountain slope. The Ore Sand¬ 
stone is wanting, or only represented by a few thin bands of 
grey sandstone. The grey calcareous sandstones also are absent 
from among the fossiliferous ore shales. But the Ore Sandstone 
comes in again in great force as we advance into Bedford 
county. 

The Lower Ore Shales, at Jersey shore are well exposed 
110 feet thick containing the small branching plant buthotrej?his 
gracilis , and the Beyrichia, Ilemicripterus and other fossils. 
Of the eight or ten thin fossiliferous ferruginous limestone beds 
four or five contain enough iron to be called ore beds but are 
only from 2 to 4 inches thick. 6 Further towards Muncy the ore 
is thicker and better and used at Williamsport furnace. Traced 
southwestward the upper shales on reaching the Potomac river 
have dwindled to a few feet thickness, with layers of sufficient 
size and purity of ore to be mined. One of the marked fea¬ 
tures of the formation in the Susquehanna and Bald Eagle val¬ 
leys is the limestone stratum 60 feet thick, and 100 feet above 
the ore beds, containing shells in multitudes as large as hickory 
nuts. The beyrichia seminalis is most characteristic ; Bogers 
mentions also cytherina alia , atrypa lacunosa , calamojpora , etc. 7 
At Danville this limestone is but 15 feet thick. Some of the 
same fossils occur in the 40 feet of green and grey shales over 
it up to the bottom of the red shales proper. 

Along the Little Juniata approaching Altoona Mr. Bur¬ 
roughs owner of Blair furnace has opened the fossil ore bed 
from 10 to 15 inches thick in its main stratum with one or two 
small riders, in several places, as opposite Baker’s hematite ore 
quarry and at the Altoona Spring at the mill in the Gap. At 
Frankstown however are the principal exhibitions of the ore, 
lying nearly flat, and reached by gangways. Here are seen, 
along a small stream, on the tramway from the mines, two beds 
of ore and limestone 3 or 4 inches thick separated by a foot or 
two of green shale, and overlaid by green shale under several 
thin limestones, under a great mass of red shale. Descending 

6 Final Report, p. 537. 


7 Final Report, p. 537. 


THE DFESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


629 


in tlie order of tlie strata, dipping 10° to 30°, and ascending the 
stream, the mine tunnel shows the lower series of ore beds, 3 or 
4 in number, under a massive sand-rock, and subjected to a dead 
fall fault of 16 feet, the fracture running north and south and 
cutting off the right hand gangway, running northeast. Ascend¬ 
ing the stream far enough to bring us, say 600 feet beneath the 
ore, we find blocks of the lowest rock ore 3 feet thick made up 
of coarse sand-grains coated with ore and making a true oolite, 
with fossil shells adhering to one of the surfaces in immense 
numbers. It has nowhere been found in place, but underlies a 
great mass of red sandstone. 

Mr. Rogers gives the following section of the Hollidaysburg 
beds, as taken from the railroad cutting near the town, where 
they appear very thin and thrown down by several small faults, 
— descending: —One 8 inches,—Strata concealed by the street,— 
Fossil Limestone bands,—Blue and green calcareous slates and 
other shales for several hundred feet,—Ore Sandstone,—Ore 
6 inches,—Shales, etc.—Ore impure 12 inches,—Shales,—Ore 
3 inches,—Shales,—Ore 3 inches,—Claret and green shales, 
—all dipping 30 degrees. 8 

The fossil ore runs all round the inside border of Frankstowm 
cove or the Hatchet, and passes southwest from Hollidaysburg 
towards Maryland in its usual position near the base of the 
Bald Eagle mountain, now Dunming’s mountain, and beyond 
Bedford Will’s mountain. Bedford lies in a synclinal valley 
of Devonian rocks wfith Upper Silurian on each side in which the 
fossil ore ought to appear but does not in any workable amount. 
In fact we must pass on to the Potomac before we find it again in 
force. There, on both sides of Cumberland runs its double out¬ 
crop attacked at various points for the furnaces in that neighbor¬ 
hood. Dr. Jackson says 9 that the principal change going south 
consists in the red shale formation becoming more silicious, be¬ 
coming in fact a red sandstone, and thickening so as to form a 
considerable ridge through Maryland. A few massive beds of 
grey sandstones then begin to add themselves with beautiful 
fucoides like twigs of bushes. Between this ridge and the 
mountain of IY runs the low yellow sandstone ridge with the 
fossiliferous ore group on its side. 

Through Virginia the fossil ore of Y ranges along the base 
of the Knobly, the New creek, the Patterson creek, the 

9 Final Report, p.567. 


0 Final Report, p. 730. 



630 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Capon, the North fork, the Props gap, the South branch 
the Warm spring, the Bull pasture, and the Back creek 
mountains —west of the Great valley ;—and in a similar way 
round the inside edge of the synclinal valleys of the lYJTassanut- 
ten range east of the Great valley. 1 No details, however, are 
afforded by the geological survey of the State, and we must 
rely upon Mr. Lyman’s report to the secretary of the American 
Iron Association in 1858, for the following facts. 

In Hampshire county ; Vulcan furnace (II 174) six miles southeast of Cumber¬ 
land. ran wholly upon this ore.—Trout run furnace, in the Devil’s Hole, is in 
ruins.—The Fort furnaces do not use the fossil ore.—Other furnaces that used 
some fossil ore have ceased making iron. Not a furnace now running in the Great 
valley, until we come to the Tennessee line, uses the fossil ore. 

In Tennessee all the furnaces on the west side of the Great 
valley under the great escarpement of the Cumberland (Alle¬ 
ghany) mountain, use fossil ore in whole or in part. 

In Hancock county; Overton’s forge blooms dyestone ore from the ridge 
just north of it. 

In Claiborne county; Cumberland gap furnace (II 276), in the celebrated pass 
of the mountain into Kentucky, by which Boone and all subsequent settlers from 
southern Virginia and the Carolinas penetrated to the western wilderness, has 
the outcrop of the fossil ore within 500 yards, extending in a ledge along the 
mountain, 30 inches thick. Specimens from these openings cannot be distin¬ 
guished from specimens from Danville or Frankstown in Pennsylvania. Five 
miles northwest of it “are inexhaustible mines of bituminous coal.”—Belleville 
furnace (II 277) and forge (I 389) on Indian creek five miles west of the gap, 
has a length of outcrop of eight miles at its command, -with openings all along, 
the ore soft.—Little Barren forge gets its dyestone five miles south near How- 
ley’s ford.—Speedwell furnace and forge in Campbell county, and Sharp’s in 
Granger, are abandoned. 

In Campbell county; Centreville forge (I 391) five miles east of Fincastle, 
gets its dyestone from north-northwest and west of it.—Baker’s forge on Cedar 
creek, gets its 25 per cent dyestone from William’s bank six miles northwest of 
it.—Richardson’s forge on Big creek, uses 23| per cent dyestone ore from a 
bank over a mile northwest of it.—Sharp’s furnace is abandoned, but the new 
forge on Big creek uses dyestone found all along the mountain near it.—Queener 
forge on Cove creek has a bank four miles north and plenty of ore in its 
vicinity.—Lindsay forge on Cove creek uses the same bank. 

In Union county; Miller’s furnace (H 380) on Buffalo creek has openings on 
the outcrop of the ore two miles and a half mile east and half a mile, a mile 
and two miles south. 

In Roane county ; The Eagle furnaces (II 381, 382) opens the outcrop of 
the fossil ore as it runs along the south side of the Tennessee river, in a south, 
west direction, from 16 to 20 inches thick, yielding 60 per cent of iron, with a 
dip of 30° to the southeast, two miles in a direct line from the furnace. The fur¬ 
nace is therefore in the range of a fault or anticlinal axis, and the parallel outcrops 
of the dyestone through east Tennessee are colored on Salford’s geological map. 


1 W. B. Rogers’s Second Report, pp. 50, 73. 


631 


THE DYESTONE FOSSIL ORE. 


The lower block ore 30 per cent bed, making soft iron, runs within a quarter mile 
of the furnace. The Jackson ferry opening, four miles east, shows the upper bed 
to be from 20 ,o 24 inches thick, averaging 50 per cent, 60 per cent after roasting, 
and “80 per cent by analysis.”—Piney grove furnace was abandoned in 1828 — 
Gordon’s forge, on White’s creek, has its banks up and down the foot of Warland’s 
ridge.—Eagle forge No. 2, two miles south of Gordon forge, uses Jackson ferry 
bank, four miles east of it.—Turnpike creek forge uses Gordon’s bank 25 per cent 
ore, three miles north of it.—Montgomery’s White creek forge, in Warland ridge 
gap, has 20 or more openings on the bed at the foot of the ridge.—Kimbrough’s 
Turnpike creek forge has several openings close by ; that from the bank nearly a 
mile south yields 60 percent, and, if carefully worked, 1,000 to 2,240 lbs. in the 
bloomary. Troost’s analysis of Gordon’s and Kimbrough’s ores is: Peroxide iron 
93, carbonate lime 3.5, alumina and silica 2. 2 

In Rhea county; Upper Piney creek forge uses Waterhouse’s bank, one and a 
half miles north, averaging 600 lbs of iron from 2,240 ore ; and Halloway’s bauk, one 
mile north-northwest, of the same quality. There are some 50 openings in Shin¬ 
bone ridge, in the three miles north of the forge.—The lower forge uses Water- 
house ore, two miles northwest, and three or four other nearer banks. 

In Meigs county; the abandoned Farmer’s (Sue creek) forge used dyestone 
from a bank nearly a mile west of it. 

In McMinn county the dyestone ore comes up on anticlinal faults, and Cooke’s 
forge (I 387) on Connesaugua creek, 13 miles southwest of Tellico furnace, has a 
bank 5 miles northwest of it. 

In Hamilton county; Bluff furnace (H 284) on the bank of the Tennessee in 
Chattanooga, gets its fossil dyestone ore from Jackson’s bank, 60 miles up the river, 
3 miles south of Eagle furnace, as already said. It is a 50 per cent ore, costing 20 
cents a ton to raise, 30 to haul to the boats, and $1 50 to deliver at the furnace. 


In Alabama ; Cherokee county ; Round mountain furnace (H 252) uses 40 per 
cent dyestone fossil ore from a bank 200 yards west of the furnace. 


In Ohio, near Zanesville Muskingum county oolitic iron analyzed by Foster in 
1837 gave: Peroxide iron 50.424, earths 24.888, water combined 21.100, uncom¬ 
bined 1.500, lime 0.112, etc.=100.00. 3 


In Eastern Kentucky, Batli county, Slate furnace was 
formerly run upon the oolitic ore of V, associated with the mag¬ 
nesian limestone (of the Clinton group), and here more silicious 
than usual. The old furnace went out of blast in 1838 after 
running 47 years. 

In Estill county, six miles northeast of Irvine, on Searly 
King’s farm, small quantities of sulphuret of copper and iron are 
found disseminated in an orange-yellow magnesian limestone, 
either of the age of the Clinton group, or in rocks of the same 


3 Fifth Report, p. 41, 1840. 


3 Mather’s Report 1838, p. 39. 





632 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


composition immediately under it. No axis of disturbance is 
known in the vicinity. 4 


In Wisconsin this ore rises from beneath the Illinois coal 
fields and Lake Michigan, in a curve the convex side of which 
is towards Chicago. In Dodge county, Mayville furnace (K 
624) is four or five miles from the Iron Bidge ore bed and 40 
miles from Lake Michigan. The La Crosse railway cuts the ore 
bed (in the town of Hubbard, Sec. 10, 12), which is a layer 10 
feet deep over 500 acres, “ containing 27 million tons.” Or, as 
Prof. Daniel again describes it, its outcrop is a mile long, and 
thickest at its east or lowest end, where its limestone covering is 
gone and the ore is decomposed to a sand or seed-ore mass 25 to 
•30 feet thick. The size of the grains ranges from mustard seed 
to swan shot, irregular, oval, glistening red, greasy, staining the 
touch ; evidently concretions around grains of silex; without 
fossils; cemented, stratified, cleft and jointed; grains laid paral¬ 
lel to the planes of bedding. Occasionally occur more recently 
formed nodules of compact brown hematite. TJnder it, is first, a 
layer of soft blue (“Nucula”) shale (see Daniel’s Pep. of 1853), 
and then hard blue limestone of Clinton (Formation Y) age. 
Over it are coarse, cavernous, magnesian limestone layers which 
once contained the iron and from which it has leached down. 
The analysis by C. T. Jackson, of Boston, shows that its cold¬ 
short quality is due to silica. Peroxide iron 72.50 (=50.77 me¬ 
tal), alumina 8.40, silica 7.75, oxide manganese 1.40, magnesia 
.64, lime 5.60, water 8.75. Two and a quarter tons of ore, 
allowing for waste, make a ton of iron, as at Ilollidaysburg, 
Pennsylvania. 6 The first experiments gave the ore a bad name. 
Extensive mine works are preparing for an extensive future de¬ 
mand. The amount of ore is unlimited. The same kind occurs 
14 miles southeast in Washington county at Hartford, 6 to 7 feet 
thick, 15 feet under ground ; also eighty miles north-northeast 4 
miles east of Depere, 7 miles southeast of Green Bay, 4 miles from 
steamboat landing, 6J- feet thick, at the falls, where is a fine site 
for a furnace owned by James Howe, of Green Bay, and D. M. 
Loy, of Depere. 


* Owen’s Kentucky Report. 6 Bulletin Amer. I. Assoc., notes, No. 135, 139, p. 80. 



CHAPTER, IY. 


THE CARBONATE ORES. 

Whatever theory of iron-ore-origination or iron-ore-meta¬ 
morphosis we adopt, the fact is patent to theorists of every sort 
and to those who will not theorize upon the subject, that a great 
change comes over the aspect of the ore-world when we ascend 
the scale of rocks and ages and reach a comparatively later 
stage than that of the Cambrian and Silurian eras. Ho longer 
magnetic and specular iron veins present their enormous and 
unsteady wedges among granite hills, loaded with curious and 
brilliant minerals. Ho longer vast deposits of brown hematite 
beneath a covering of gravel-drift follow the outcrops of the 
older limestones. There come instead to view innumerable thin 
but wide extended sheets of protocarbonate of iron, alternating 
with slates surcharged with carbon and sulphur, and with Hag- 
stones full of vegetable stemcasts but almost destitute of higher 
types of life. This new form of iron meets us first in any great 
abundance at the beginning of the Devonian age, recurs at long 
intervals during its elapse, makes one of its most brilliant ex¬ 
hibits at the opening of the Coal era, through which it reigns 
supreme, reappears with the coal measures of the Middle 
Secondary or Triassic age, and finishes its mission in the tertiary 
strata underlapping the sea coast. 

The first important fact afforded by this series of phenomena 
is this : that the age of carbon opens in both forms, organic 
and chemical, at once. Plants and animals appear in abun¬ 
dance when carbonate of iron appears in workable layers. How 
far this is a coincidence based on a relation of cause and effect 
is not yet well made out. Some see a closer and more necessary 
dependence of the carbonation of the ore upon the carbon set 
free from the dead organisms than others do ; and the few ex¬ 
pressions of various opinions which follow here will suffice to 
show how fruitful a field of experiment as well as conjecture 
that on which we enter can be made. 

The precise method of formation of the imbedded protocarbo- 


634 - 


PAET II.-DIVISION II. 


nate of iron is in fact still a mystery. Evidently deposited in 
an ocean like the other coal measures, they should have been 
thrown down one would think in the form of a red peroxide 
powder. But none of the present waters of the earth are charged 
with iron to such a degree as to make dejiosits of the extent of 
some of these a possibility ; and what is deposited is also mixed 
with sand and mud, its chief source being the decomposition of 
such silicates as the augite and hornblende of various traps and 
schists, the clays of which sometimes contain one-third their 
weight of iron oxide. 

Mr. Id. C. Sorby of Sheffield in a memoir on the subject read 
before the Geological Society of the West Biding in 1856 has 
supported the theory that all the iron-stone deposits may have 
once been strata of carbonate of lime, covered by ferruginous 
clays containing organic matter producing bicarbonate of iron, 
which, when carried down through the limestone, has removed 
a large part of the same, leaving in its place carbonate of iron. 
His example is the Cleveland hill iron-stone, quarried near Mid- 
dleborough, containing shells, some of them unchanged, others 
changed to carbonate of iron. The microscope reveals yellow 
obtuse rhombic crystals of carbonate of iron shooting into the 
shells a variable distance, sometimes leaving the interior an un¬ 
changed clear colorless carbonate of lime. What could be done 
to a shell, he argues, could be done to a stratum. An analysis 
of a shell from the Inferior Oolite gave carbonate of the protox¬ 
ide of iron 78.0, carb. lime 5.2, carb. magnesia 3.1, peroxide of 
iron 10.9, water 2.1, carbonaceous matter 0.1, quartz 0.6. Origi¬ 
nally such a shell would consist almost entirely of carbonate of 
lime; now it is more than three-fourths carbonate of iron. The 
Cleveland hill ironstone is seen under the microscope also to be 
oolitic, with small fragments of shells and patches of tine granu¬ 
lar matter like many oolitic limestones. It consists chiefly of 
the carbonate, and contains also silicate and phosphate of the 
protoxide of iron (to which it owes its green color), with smaller 
quantities of carbonate of lime and magnesia, some alumina and 
peroxide of iron. 6 We know that phosphate of iron is produced 
by the action of bicarbonate of iron on phosphate of lime. The 
silicate of iron present might be formed by the protoxide of iron 

0 For the analysis see the Iron Ores of Great Britain, Part I. of the Memoirs of the 
Geological Survey. 


CARBONATE ORES. 


635 


either replacing the alumina of the clay, or decomposing silicate 
of lime. 

This is one theory. 7 Another and precisely opposite one is 
that which asserts the possibility of all these beds having been 
deposited as peroxide of iron, and then supposes them changed 
by the carbonic gases from decaying animal and vegetable mat¬ 
ter into beds of carbonate of iron. The latest expression of this 
theory is given by H. D. Rogers thus: 

Respecting the origin of carbonate of iron in these ores, it is sufficiently evident 
from the texture of the nodular ore itself and of the slates surrounding it, that the 
whole mass of each ore-bearing bed was primarily deposited as a fine calcareous and 
ferruginous mud, in which was included a large amount of organic matter, especial¬ 
ly the fragments of the carboniferous vegetation, and in some cases certain species 
of shells. In these deposits the iron was at first probably in the state of peroxide, 
as in nearly all finely-pulverized and long-exposed sediments. By the slow decom¬ 
position of the organic materials, a part of the oxygen of the peroxide would be with¬ 
drawn to combine with the carbon and hydrogen of the organic substances, and the 
iron would be thus left in the state of protoxide. At the same time the carbonic 
acid formed by the oxidation of the carbon would unite with the protoxide, and 
give rise to the protocarbonate of iron. As long as any organic matter remained 
in the mass, this change would continue, and in this way the whole of the peroxide 
of the original sediment may be conceived to have been converted into carbonate. 
The same action now continuing, though in a slighter degree, must tend to protect 
the carbonate from the decomposing action of the atmosphere, and thus in many 
cases to retard its conversion into the brown oxide. The nodular form of the ore 
is evidently a subsequent result and must be referred to the agency of a concreting 
force among the particles by which the carbonates of iron and lime, previously dif¬ 
fused in a uniform manner throughout the mass, have been gathered around certain 
centres. Some of the superficial beds of brown ore resting upon the outcrop of the 
coal rocks, would seem to be derived rather from the sulphuret of iron diffused in 
the adjoining slates, as in cases previously mentioned, than from the decomposition 
of the nodular carbonates. These have nothing of the continuous regularity of the 
layers of the nodular ore, and they bear a strong resemblance to the loose ore de¬ 
posit of the older Appalachian slates. In further elucidation of this interesting sub- 

7 Volger remarks how noteworthy it is that no observation is recorded of spathic iron 
replacing the lime of organic remains, as of molluscs, crinoidal joints, etc., although 
great attention has been paid by Blum and others to the comparison of the petrifying 
agents. Speyer was the first to discover the pseudomorph of spathic iron after calc- 
spar, described by Blum * in Leonhard and Bronn’s Jahrbuch der Mineralogie, 1851, 
p. 398. Calcspar rhombohedrons in drusy cavities in Anamesite are clad with a thin fra¬ 
gile rind of ironspar, from which project thin ironspar lamellae. The agent was pro¬ 
bably water holding not only ironoxydulsesquicarbonate but also free carbonic acid. 
Sandberger and Sillem describe other cases; the latter, one of sharp rhombohedrons 
(R + 3) of calcspar turned to brown-yellow nodular carbonate of iron, lying on a piece 
of nodular carbonate penetrated with little crystals of sulphuret of iron; the rhombo¬ 
hedrons being holLw, and warty-drusy outside.f 


* Pseudom. p. 304. 


t Volger’s Studien, p. 23. 



036 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


ject, I take the liberty of introducing here a valuable brief essay on the origin and 
accumulation of the protocarbonate of iron in coal measures, etc., by Professor 
Wm. B. Rogers. 

This compound, as we know, where mined in the coal measures, presents itself in 
courses of lenticular nodules and interrupted plates usually included in carbonaceous 
shales, and in the fire-clays which underlie the seams of coal, and in such cases 
it often forms a heavy ore containing but little earthy or organic matter mixed 
with the protocarbonate; but it is also frequently met with in a diffused condition , 
pervading thick strata of shale and shaly sandstone, and causing these rocks to pre¬ 
sent in their different layers all the gradations of composition from a poor argilla¬ 
ceous and sandy ore, to beds of sandstone and shale, with little more than a trace 
of the ferruginous compound. On comparing the different subdivisions of a sys¬ 
tem of coal measures, we may remark certain general conditions connected with 
the abundance or with the comparative absence of the protocarbonate in the 
strata. 

One of these is seen in the fact that the lenticular ores and strata impregnated 
with protocarbonate of iron are in a great degree restricted to such divisions of the 
carboniferous rocks as include beds of coal , or are otherwise heavily charged with car¬ 
bonaceous matter. This is well known on comparing together the four subdivisions 
of the carboniferous rocks of the great trails-Alleghany coal region, as classified 
under the head of the Serai Coal Series of the Pennsylvania and Virginia geology. 
In the first of these, designated as the older coal measures, the protocarbonate is 
found in larger amount, both in the shape of layers of lenticular ore, and diffused 
through the substance of the shalv strata. In the next division above, distinguished 
as the Older Barren Shales, and which, as the name implies, is comparatively de¬ 
void of carbonaceous matter, much less of the protocarbonate is met with. In 
the third group, that of the newer coal measures, the ore again abounds; and in 
the uppermost division or Newer Barren Shales, it has a second time almost disap¬ 
peared. The connection between the development of the protocarbonate in the 
strata, and the presence, either now or formerly, of a large amount of carbonaceous 
or vegetable matter, becomes even more striking on a detailed examination of 
particular beds. Thus in the coarse sandstones of the coal measures which are 
comparatively destitute of vegetable remains, we find little admixture of the proto¬ 
carbonate. On the other hand, the fine-grained flaggy argillaceous sandstones, 
which are often crowded with the impressions and carbonized remains of plants, 
are at the same time more or less impregnated with this ferruginous compound. So 
again, the soft argillaceous shales, in the midst of which the lenticular ore so fre¬ 
quently presents itself, show by their dark color and included impressions of plants, 
as well as by actual analysis, that they are richly imbued with vegetable matter. 
Nor do the nearly white fire-clays, which in many cases inclose thick courses of 
the lenticular ore, form any exception to this law ; for although in their present 
state, they contain little or no carbonaceous matter, the marks of innumerably 
roots of Stigmaria, and parts of other plants which everywhere penetrate the mass, 
show that at one time they must have been crowded with vegetable remains. 

A further and yet more striking proof of the influence which the contiguous 
vegetable matter has had in the formation of the protocarbonate is seen in the fact 
that the most productive layers of the ore are commonly met with quite near to the 
beds of coal, and that frequently courses of the nodules are found in the carbona¬ 
ceous shales or partings which lie in the midst of the seam itself. 

While the strata, including the protocarbonate, are thus distinguished by the ad 


CARBONATE ORES. 


637 


mixture of more or less carbonaceous matter, they are also remarkable for seldom 
exhibiting a distinctly red tint. Presenting, where not weathered, various shades 
of greenish-grey and olive and bluish-black, they only become brown or red where, 
by exposure to the air, the protocarbonate has been converted into the sesquioxide 
of iron. On the other hand, those divisions of the coal measures which have been 
but slightly charged with vegetable matter—as, for example, the Barren shales of 
the Serai coal rocks before alluded to—contain much red material both in distinct 
strata and mottling the general mass, and are throughout more or less impregnated 
with the sesquioxide. A like general law as to color would seem to apply to the other 
great groups of sedimentary rocks which include, in particular beds, accumulations 
of vegetable or other organic exuviae. Thus in the new and old Red-sandstone forma¬ 
tions, which generally include so large a proportion of sediment colored by the red 
oxide of iron, organic remains are of comparatively rare occurrence, and, when 
present, are met with almost exclusively in the grey, and olive, and dark-colored 
strata which are interpolated in certain parts of the great masses of red material. 
This relation is beautifully shown in the middle secondary rocks of the Atlantic 
Slope, which extend in a prolonged belt from the Connecticut valley into the State of 
South Carolina. In the strata of red sandstone and shale which form the chief part 
of the mass, vegetable or animal exuviae are almost entirely absent; but the re¬ 
mains of fish and impressions of carbonized parts of plants occurring in this group 
of deposits are found imbedded in layers of greenish and olive sandstones and dark 
bituminous shales. So in the south parts of the belt in Virginia and North Carolina, 
where these rocks include seams of coal and extensive beds of sandstone and shale» 
containing the remains of plants, the usual red color is found to give place to the 
grey, olive, and dark tints of the old coal measures, and layers of proto-carbonate 
of iron show themselves in the vicinity of the coal seams. Taken in mass, the red 
and mottled strata of the unproductive coal measures, or of the other groups of red 
rocks above alluded to, would no doubt be found to contain, in an equal thickness, 
as large an amount of iron as the coal-bearing strata which include the layers of 
carbonate—the difference being, that in the former case the metal remains for the 
most part diffused through the rock as a sesquioxide ; while, in the latter, having 
assumed the condition of proto-carbonate, it has to some extent been concentrated 
in particular layers or strata. According to a rough estimate of the amount of car¬ 
bonate ore included in the lower Coal-measures of the Laurel Hill region of Vir¬ 
ginia and Pennsylvania, derived from a detailed examination of the ores and asso¬ 
ciated strata at several points, it may be safely assumed that the equivalent of ses¬ 
quioxide of iron would not amount to one-third of one per cent of the whole mass 
of this portion of the coal measures, and a proportion not exceeding this is deduci- 
ble from the measured sections of ore and accompanying rocks in the carboniferous 
strata of other tracts subjected to a similar calculation. But even allowing a quan¬ 
tity three times as great as this to cover the diffused carbonate, and the oxide in 
some cases mingled with it, we should have only about one per cent to represent the 
proportion of ferruginous matter in the entire mass—an amount undoubtedly much 
less than what exists in many of the strata of red and purple shales and shaly sand¬ 
stones of the carboniferous series, or of the groups of red rocks geologically above 
or beneath it. 

In attempting to explain the origin of the protocarbonate under the conditions 
above described, it is important to keep in view the fact of the diffusion of this 
compound through many of the strata as a general constituent, and the frequent 
preservat on oven in layers of the ore of the lamination of the contiguous rock. 


638 


FART II.-DIVISION II. 


The supf/osition of its being a chemical deposit formed from springs charged with 
carbonic acid, and holding protocarbonate in solution, is evidently inconsistent 
with these conditions, and not less so with the fact of the great horizontal exten¬ 
sion of individual beds of ore and impregnated shaly rocks. In view ol these va¬ 
rious considerations it may be concluded— 

First , That throughout the coal measures and other groups of rocks above men¬ 
tioned, as well in the portions containing coal and diffused vegetable and animal 
matter as in the barren parts, the original sediment was more or less charged with 
sesquioxide of iron ; and, 

Second , That this sesquioxide in the presence of the changing vegetable matter 
with which certain of the strata abounded, w'as converted into protocarbonate, 
which remained in part diffused through these beds, or by processes of filtration 
and segregation was accumulated in particular layers. 

It is well known that during the slow chemical changes by which vegetable mat¬ 
ter inclosed in moist earth is converted into lignite or coal, both light carburetted 
hydrogen and carbonic acid are evolved, and that these gases are even eliminated 
from coal seams and their adjoining carbonaceous strata. The reducing agency of 
the carbon and hydrogen, as they separate in their nascent state from the organic 
matter, is capable, as we know, of converting certain sulphates into sulphurets, and 
even more readily of transforming the sesquioxide of iron into protoxide. The 
latter change would doubtless be favored by the affinity of the carbonic acid present 
in the mass, for the protoxide thus formed, and in this way the sesquioxide would 
be entirely converted into the protocarbonate of iron. Conceiving a like process 
to have operated on a large scale in the coal measures or other strata containing, 
when deposited, a mixture of sesquioxide of iron and organic matter, we have a 
simple explanation of the general conversion of this oxide into carbonate, and of 
the loss of the reddish coloring in which these materials more or less participated. 
As these actions must be supposed to have commenced in each stratum as soon as 
the organic matter contained in it began to suffer chemical change, we may con¬ 
clude that the formation of the protocarbonate was already far advanced in the 
earlier strata when only beginning in those deposited at a later period. Each layer 
of vegetable matter, as it was transformed into coal, would not fail to impregnate 
the adjoining beds of shale and sandstone with the protocarbonate, and thus the 
development of this compound was, as it were, coeval with that of the coal. The 
gathering of the diffused protocarbonate into bands and courses of ore began, no 
doubt, as soon as the production of this compound had made some progress; but it 
probably continued until long after the completion of the chemical changes above 
described, and indeed it is possible that in some strata it is not yet entirely finished. 
In this process, which finds a simple explanation in the combined action of infiltration 
and the segregating force, it can hardly be questioned that the carbonic acid pervad¬ 
ing the mass of sediment acted a very important part. The large amount of this 
gas evolved from the beds of vegetable matter undergoing change would impart to 
the water of the adjoining strata the power of dissolving the diffused protocarbon¬ 
ate, which being then carried by infiltration through the more porous beds, would 
accumulate above and within the close argillaceous or shaly layers, forming in some 
cases bands of rock ore, in others, courses of nodular and plate ores. Of these, 
the former would seem to have resulted from the accumulation by gravity of the dis¬ 
solved carbonate in the substance of sandy shales near the upper limit of the more 
impervious beds, while we may regard the latter as having been collected in all di¬ 
rections from the general charge of protocarbonate accumulated in the argillaceous 


CARBONATE ORES. 


639 


mass, its mobility in the dissolved condition greatly aiding the gathering process of 
the segregating force. 

The objections to this theory are severally these: first the 
relation specified of coal to iron is not precisely true in nature. 
Many beds of carbonate of iron are far removed from any 
fossil-holding rock or coal bed. In the vast piles of the olive 
Devonian sands and slates where hundreds of ore-ball layers 
occur, fossils are almost unknown. It is true that the Devonian 
grey shales of the West are the site of the Kentucky knob ore, 
and overlie the black slates of which we can only imagine the 
black color to be in some way dependent on an unusual quantity 
of carbon, and we know of thin coal beds in them ; but it is hardly 
to be supposed that the Larry’s creek ore occurring one or two 
thousand feet above the black slates of the upper Susquehanna 
valley owe their deoxygenation to their carbonic acid or oxide 
gases.—Again the necessity of the supposition of the iron to 
the coal or fossil-holding strata would seem an almost essential 
point of the theory ; but how often, as in the ore of XI, does the 
iron lie ten, twenty, fifty feet below the coal or carbonized 
slates, and could hardly be supposed affected by their gases. 
Surely some fixed relation of position would be noticed between 
the two minerals if the one generated the other. On the con¬ 
trary, sometimes on top, sometimes below, the ore bed now 
touches the coal, now removes itself to a distance, with sand, 
lime, clay between, in one or many alternate strata just as it 
may happen.—Then, the frequent repetitions of the plates of 
ore in a single homogeneous stratum of sand, or of clay, apparently 
regardless of the proximity or distance of a coal bed, show how 
little they were affected by the existence of any such. These 
repetitions are each perfect and complete, like any other stra¬ 
tum, and would certainly show all the steps of any change to 
which they had been subjected since their origin. Were they 
originally deposited as peroxide and then slowly metamorphosed 
by carbonic gas to a carbonate protoxide, they would, in the 
majority of cases, be seen arrested in this development at 
various stages of it; whereas the cases where this seems to be 
the fact are very few, and to be explained by the subsequent 
backward metamorphosis from carbonate protoxide to peroxide, 
as the theory is obliged to admit.—Finally, the composition of 
the stratum of a carbonate ore bed is so analogous, in fact so 


640 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


identical with that of a carbonate of lime bed, the constituents 
are so similar, and replace each other with such frequency, 
rapidity and chemical sang froid , magnesia, soda, zinc and 
manganese coming in and going out like habitues of a club- 
room, all equally at home, all standing on the same platform of 
original rights, that it is impossible to regard the combination 
layer as anything but originally the compound deposit it is 
now. 

The theory of carbonization has however found many sup¬ 
porters, and one lately in an unexpected and experimental way. 
M. Riviere has discovered the fact that common street gas 
escaping from the main, impregnates, carbonizes and in fact 
turns into a combustible coal-slate the mud through which it 
ascends to the surface of the ground. Through dry sand the 
gas escapes and leaves few traces; but when it must pass 
through a clayey, slightly damp ground, charged with vegetable 
or animal debris, especially if under a considerable thickness of 
upper strata, it then charges the mass, especially near the cracks 
and joints, increases its weight and even its bulk, and converts 
the vegetable matters into carbon (more or less bituminous) and 
the ferruginous matters into oxides, sulphates or sulphides of 
iron; probably (he says) if time were given and circumstances 
were favorable it would convert them into sulpliurets and car¬ 
bonates of iron . 8 

But it is one thing (and a very beautiful thing) to see layers 
of mud so charged mechanically with carbonized gases as to 
become carbonized shales like coal-black slate, and quite a differ¬ 
ent thing to imagine any such escape of gases to convert solid 
layers of peroxide of iron into plates of carbonate. Hence the 
theory trusts to the disseminated gases finding the peroxide, not 
in layers, but disseminated through the strata, converting it into 
carbonate of iron ; and then the theory calls for waters holding 
more carbonic acid in solution to wash the disseminated new- 
made ore down to a common level on the upper surface of some 
mud stratum. This is a mere fancy, as any one will feel who 
counts the innumerable perfect layers of carbonate of iron in 
the rocks, remarking how they obey no such law of settlement. 
Every coal bed has a fire clay under it, for this was needful for 

8 Origin of bituminous schists, a paper communicated to the Academy of Sciences at 
Paris, Oct. 25, 1858, by M. A. Rivifere. Franklin Institute Journal, p. 122. 


CARBONATE ORES. 


641 


its plants to grow in first , 3 or this was the sediment which its 
plants threw down. So if the above theory be correct, every 
bed of carbonate of iron should have a sandy or pervious mass 
of rock above it and a clay or impervious layer underneath it. 
An hour’s observation of a cliff will dispel such a fansy if one 
has entertained it. There are no signs of this settling of the 
iron to a level, except in the case of true limonite beds, which, 
by the exception they offer to the rule of the carbonate beds, 
prove the rule of original deposition. There are certain beds of 
iron ore in the coal measures which bear all the marks of having 
been collected from the strata above and carried down upon the 
face of a clay or limestone stratum which in turn has itself 
suffered from the subsequent interchange of elements. Such is 
the great ferriferous or buhrstone bed ore of northwest Penn¬ 
sylvania and Ohio. But the majority of ore beds show no mark 
of such action. 

There is a third theory which calls to its aid volcanic gases to 
carbonize the iron ore beds in the coal formations. But this 
cannot stand a moment before the two objections that these beds 
are not local but continental in extent, and not only very 
ancient but quite recent productions of the life of the planet. 
It is true that that general connection between the coal and car¬ 
bonate of iron which is acknowledged in the large by even 
those who deny it in detail, may be best explained perhaps by 
an over charge of carbonic vapors in the ancient atmosphere, 
orminatiim at one and the same time carbonized sediments and 
an abundance of organic life. But the existence of an atmos¬ 
phere of that peculiar volcanic type, once so favorite a part of 
the explanations by which geologists accounted for the ancient 
, coal measures, is no longer generally believed in. 

A fourth attempt to explain the perhaps inexplicable refers 
the beds of carbonate of iron to the same agency which distri¬ 
buted the beds of sand and mud, limestones and coal-plant debris, 
—to river water charged with carbonated and ferruginous spring 
waters, pouring into the shallow ocean the contributions of 
innumerable copious mineral springs and the detritus of all their 
water basins. Something must be granted to the subsequent 
readjustment and self-ordered stratification of these materials; 

“ See Lesquereux’s admirable essay on the formation coal in Owen’s Kentucky 
Reports, vol iii. 


41 


642 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


but how much, will perhaps never be found out. The finely 
comminuted and widely distributed decaying organic matter 
always carried out to sea by all rivers and held in suspension by 
all ocean currents has not been overlooked by geologists. Not 
going quite so far as Whittlesea, who will have it that the coal 
beds themselves are such infloated masses, they nevertheless 
recognize the enormous quantity of this decay. Its chemical 
eactions after being imbedded all over an ocean bottom and all 
through a hundred or a thousand fathom of wet sands and muds 
must be magnificent. The intellectual conception and arrange¬ 
ment of the products of such a laboratory may well confound 
the theorizing faculty. They can be studied only on the edges 
of the present deep and in an ignorance more or less complete 
of most of the circumstances under which they have resulted. 
Dr. Hayes of Boston has called attention to the electro-chemical 
agency of suboceanic springs of fresh water, rising in the midst 
of the shore detritus before and after its deposit. 

The subterranean waters of the peninsula of Boston, have at the depth of about 
140 feet, a remarkable uniformity of composition, and the flow towards the shore¬ 
line is abundant. Like the water of the lower Mississippi, they are turbid, holding 
in suspension finely divided carbonate of lime and iron, and hydrate of silicic acid ; 
affording, when greatly heated, a precipitation of hydrated carbonate of lime, due 
to the instantaneous decomposition of sulphate of lime, by a solution of bicarbonate 
of soda present. The latter salt is in these cases always in excess; so that the 
whole mass of the drainage, at about the same level, has a marked alkalinity, and 
belongs to the class of alkaline waters. Numerous observations have shown that 
this water is covered by a compact marl-earth, which has so large a proportion of 
clay that it effectually divides the upper drainage from the lower, or alkaline water, 
which, from its depth below the surface, can enter the harbor water only at some 
distance from the shore. When attempts have been made by continuous pumping 
for many days, to exhaust the supply, or overcome the flow of the water at one 
point, the wells or borings at contiguous points have shown a reduction of volume 
in the water; but a reflux of the ocean water through the same channels has been 
effected only where, after several days, a very large volume of water had been 
pumped from one opening. This fact establishes our knowledge of a continuous 
flow of alkaline water towards the sea from the shore-line, while the depth of the 
stratum under which it flows, shows that it is overlaid by the mass of sea-water near 
the shore. A continuation of solid marl stratum below the water near the shore, 
would prevent any intermixture of the alkaline water with the sea water at that 
point, and allow it to gradually mix only when the soundings are about twenty-five 
fathoms. There is no cause apparent, which would prevent a continued suspension 
of the minutely divided matter, until the turbid water mixes with the sea water. In 
the cases of pumping referred to, the water, after some days, became more turbid 
than at the commencement of the trials, leading to the conclusion that turbid water 
occupied every part of the submarine channels of flow. 

The occurrence of fresh water forced up from below the ocean, along the border 


CARBONATE ORES. 


643 


of our southern States, has been frequently described. I have observed phenomena 
in several places among the West India islands, illustrating this flow from the land 
under the water of the ocean, where the elevation of volcanic mountains was con¬ 
siderable. 

The mere presence of fresh w r ater at the bottom of the ocean infiltrating through 
the slime, or sand, would be sufficient to induce chemical changes by the disturbance 
of electrical relations. While the surface and mass of the ocean water, absorbing 
oxygen from the air, would be positive to a stratum of sea water mixed with fresh 
at the bottom, decompositions of oxidized bodies with simpler forms of matter 
would take place near the line where they blended. I am disposed to consider the 
presence of organic matter, either carried in solution from the land, or taken up 
from the salt and stirred by the fresh water, as the more active cause of decompo¬ 
sition of oxidized bodies. The formation of the sulphurets of metals, from metallic 
masses, which have been deposited at the bottom of the sea, on soundings, is more 
simply explained by this mode of action also. The existence of a drainage flow of 
turbid water, or a water containing bicarbonates of alkalies, or alkaline earths, 
along a coast line, would account for the green color of sea water on soundings near 
coasts. The division of blue water into many thin portions between reflecting sur¬ 
faces, produced by the presence of suspended solid particles, alters its color to the 
hue which, by contrast, is called green These solid, though finely divided par¬ 
ticles, would be far more abundant in the case of the flow of alkaline waters, for 
the mixing of such wmters with the ocean would be followed by the constant decom¬ 
position of the lime salts of the ocean water, and the production of carbonate of 
lime in a hydrous, gelatinous form, passing into the state of opaque particles, and 
precipitating continuously. A natural cause for the production of carbonate of lime, 
by precipitation from the lime salts held in solution by sea water, is thus acting 
along the coast line of this and probably other countries. The influence of the 
minute quantity of organic matter contained in drainage water in producing chemi¬ 
cal changes of importance is rendered apparent, in this connection, by its power of 
decomposition of oxygen sources. 1 

The carbonates of iron undergo two changes subsequent to 
deposition, one mechanical and the other chemical, compara¬ 
tively one ancient and the other modern. The first is into the 
nodular form, the second is into the brown hematite condition. 
A few w T ords are here necessary about each. 

Nodular iron ore is a form of the carbonate of the protoxide 
of iron found sporadic in the midst of sandstone or shale, and in 
layers, more or less compact, in all kinds of sediments, even in 
the bodies of coal beds, where the coal is much mixed with 
slate. It is almost always found in the shales or sandstones over- 
lying a solid plate of the carbonate ore itself; and usually so 
that the nodules increase in number and size downward towards 
the plate, as if a plate itself was but the maximum of balls in a 
given space ; in fact, many or most plates of ore may be mined 
in elongated tablets or huge balls flattened square against each 

1 Dr. Hayes in the B. S. N. H. See Annual of Sci. Disc. 1856. 


644 


PART IT.-DIVISION If. 


other, and some of the finest exhibitions of ore are of such 
tabular masses nearly or quite touching, yet separated by fine 
white or variously tinted clay, in which the tablets of ore lie as 
it were imbedded. All this makes the chemical separation of 
the carbonate ore from the silica and alumina of the original 
clay deposit a matter of segregation around centres of attraction. 
Various opinions of the cause here at work have been expressed. 
There are five or six substances for which carbonic acid has 
similar affinities and they are always found grouped in these 
balls, as has already been said; but there are some reasons for 
believing that one of them, lime, exercises a predominant 
influence over the rest. It is a fact that all carbonate of iron 
beds not only contain a notable percentage of carbonate of lime 
but locally turn into limestone beds; instances may be cited in 
the coal measures where a bed of iron ore several feet thick 
becomes in the course of a few hundred yards as thick a bed of 
limestone comparatively destitute of iron. How the crystallizing 
force of carbonate of lime is well known ; wherever it can, 
it forms calcspar: where it cannot*- then it forms spheroids 
carrying with it and arranging the clay and iron in concentric 
shells. The hydrous silicates (hyallite) do the same . 2 

2 Dr. C. T. Jackson of Boston has cited in this connection the crystalline sand of Fon¬ 
tainebleau in which grains of silicious sand are forced into the form of calcareous spar by 
the energetic segregation of the crystallizing carbonate of lime; the inert matter, the 
sand, being 50 per cent of the whole mass. Dr. Hayes has described a growth of nodules 
which he has watched and seen “ equal to the size of a garden bean, to take place in the 
course of tw r o or three weeks of wet, spring-time w'eather. To form a just conception 
of the conditions, the fact must be kept in view, that the beds containing them are com¬ 
posed of fine silts, and in the case immediately under view, these were arranged in planes 
of deposition of alternate courses, covered by much finer material, in layers of different 
thickness; so that the mass was stratified; the coarser layers being very permeable to 
water. The rounded forms, often strongly resembling organic remains, are found rest¬ 
ing between these layers, and a condition necessary to their formation is, the presence in 
the layer or rock above them of abundance of carbonate of lime." 

The force exerted by some salts in their tendency to crystallize is brought into view 
only when we study their formation, and carbonate of lime is one of the constantly- 
occurring salts which well illustrates, in a remarkable manner, this power of assuming 
regular forms. As has been stated, with fifty per cent of its weight of sand, it forms 
regular rhomboids, but the more recent observations of some African travellers, wiio 
found their progress impeded by “ stone plants,” six or eight inches high, formed of 
aggregates of spear-shaped crystals of sand, cemented by carbonate of lime, show', that 
this large proportion may be exceeded, while the foreign material is in a somew'hat 
coarse state. 

In the formation of clay-stones, however, we are to consider the presence of finely- 
divided matter suspended in, or so mixed with water of infiltration in spring-time, or 
general saturation from position, that it has nearly a semi-fluid state. A saturated 
solution of bicarbonate, or more commonly crenate of lime, finds its w'ay into the soft 


CARBONATE ORES. 


645 


There is often some organic particle or body present to de¬ 
termine the position of the spheres in the body of the rock, but 
m the vast majority of cases the centre point seems to have 
been determined by some other occasion, perhaps an accidental 
and purely mathematical proportion between the weights or 
sizes ot some neighboring atoms. Sometimes, on breaking open 
a nodule of fine iron ore, a fern frond is revealed, with leaflets 
spread, and edges gently curled, and every nervure drawn 
\\ ith exquisite exactness. There are whole beds of iron no¬ 
dules described by western geologists in every one of which 
lesides a shell. Such a one overlies coal No. 9 of the west 
Kentucky basin, which is wrought at the Saline Company’s 
mines in Illinois, and the nodules contain the ctviculcc vectcdate- 
raria, productus muricatus , and other shells, and even fine 
pieces ot petrified wood. But these nodules are “ especially 
formed ot sulphuret of iron and so hard that they can only be 
broken after they have been roasted in the heaps of burning 
shales.” 3 Now when we remember that the tertiary lignite 
coal beds convert all their fossils into (not carbonate) but sul¬ 
phuret ot iron, that all the coals of the west are disposed to be 
abundantly sulphurous and most of them contain sulphuret of 
iron in nodules, or in plates, either horizontally interstratified 
with their benches and layers, or vertically inserted between 
the crystal-joints,—that sulphur has a much stronger affinity 

mass, by frost crevices, or channels left by roots, or even air-bubbles, and at these 
points the concretions commence, when no nuclei of similar chemical composition exist. 
The finely-divided matter interposes an obstacle to the formation of crystals of carbonate 
of lime, far greater than an equal amount of coarser foreign matter would do ; and we 
observe, then, the influence of that beautiful law in accordance with which rounded 
forms are produced. In the laboratory similar forms daily occur, where the presence 
of finely-divided and diffused bodies arrests the formation of crystals, and globular, or 
curved-surfaced solids are produced ; as in the animal frame, the cell-structure causes 
the dissolved phosphate of lime to take the curvilinear form pertaining to organization. 
The claystones which are produced under th,e simple conditions here described, have no 
concentric structure; a slight conformity to this structure being observed, when a bub¬ 
ble of air, or a vacant space, marks the point of commencing deposition. In other cases, 
a shell in its calcareous composition offers a preferred nucleus, and as it contributes its 
lime salt, a concentric arrangement may be noticed in the forms resulting, especially 
after exposing them to heat. Rounded masses once formed become centres or nuclei 
of secondary occurring aggregates, one central mass being surrounded by spheres 
attached; but in all it is easy to read the influence of the tendency of carbonate of lime 
to crystallize, and the opposition of the finely-divided silt, causing the particles of both 
to assume forms without straight bounding lines, as the polarizing force of crystallization 

is arrested in all directions_ Annual S. D. 1858. 

3 Lesquereux in Owen, vol. iii. 


646 


part ir .—division n. 


for iron than carbon lias,—and that, nevertheless, in the im¬ 
mediate presence and vicinity of the western coals are found 
beds of carbonate of iron almost destitute of sulphur,—we see a 
further reason for doubting the theory that these beds of carbo¬ 
nate of iron were carbonized by effluences from the coal, inas¬ 
much as they would be more likely to be sulphurized. 

The study of the nodular masses of the western ore beds will 
reward itself with some unexpected results. The star-shaped 
crystallizations which are so common in the nodules of the Kan¬ 
sas coal field are by no means confined to it. The accompany¬ 
ing wood cut A, represents half of a very oblate spheroid, lying- 



near Station 1741 of Joseph Lesley’s B line Lick Fork of Elk Fork 
of Licking, Morgan county east Kentucky, 4 just above where 
Casby’s coal has been opened, and measuring 4 feet 5 inches in 
length, by 4 feet 2 inches wide, and about one foot thick; the 
general appearance, reddish and worn ; fracture bluish, showing 
thin layers of sandy shale which have weathered in the intaglio 
star in minute terraces as shown in the drawing; the little 


4 Oct. 5, 1858. 













CARBONATE ORES. 


647 


valleys forming the star are about 2 inches deep with bevel 
slopes of 45° and a minute hard ridge elevated along the bottom 
(as seen in the cross section B), reddish in color and fining to a 



point at the head of each vale or ray. A second example (C) 
not quite so large has the central 
polygon and radiating lines far less 
regular, and not channelled but stand¬ 
ing out in relief. It is evident that 
this internal structure has nothing to 
do with the origin of the nodule, but 
dates from its contraction (probably 
while drying) at which time cracks 
ran through the mass and these were 
afterwards filled by infiltration. Sul¬ 
phate of lime has been formed and pre¬ 
served in this way in the coal measures, from which in the 
other and more usual forms it is almost wholly absent. 

The process of converting these protocarbonate of iron beds 
into hydrated peroxide of iron seems to have gone ofi* faster or 
slower, more or less thoroughly, according to circumstances the 
chief of which were no doubt the porous condition of the super¬ 
imposed layers of mud and sand. Ho doubt when the insoluble 
silicate of lime is an abundant ingredient in the mass, and com¬ 
posed chiefly of carbonate of iron and lime, the degradation 
and metamorphosis of the bed becomes a work of almost infinite 
difficulty and duration ; and we see the outcrops of silicious lime¬ 
stones therefore and of silicious carbonate iron ore exposed in 
cliffs and beds of streams unchanged as when the first excava¬ 
tion of the valleys laid their edges bare to the influences so 
powerful over other rocks but which they have unconsciously 
defied. It is only in the case of fossil-bearing masses of lime¬ 
stone that the surface is roughened by the slow extrusion of the 
minute organisms, the whorls of pleurotomaria, branching corals 
and the like. How far electrical action has gone on around the 














































648 


PAliT II.-DIVISION II. 


junction lines of these organisms 
discerned, but the slight relief in 


with the menstruum cannot be 
which millions of years have 


left the forms upon the formless surface show how insoluble the 


mineral elements must be. In the case of the iron ores it is 


evident that the process must have attacked the molecules while 
distributed, and it will be seen how the buhrstone liinonite 
becomes abundant upon the upper face of the great Ferriferous 
Limestone of the Lower Coal Measures in proportion to the 
porous, argillaceous, non-silicious condition of the clay-sands 
over it from which the ore has been swept down and wherein 
many nodules of carbonate of iron remain to attest to its 
origin. 

The action of Silica in the metamorphosis of iron has been 
considered necessary , by some physicists, to the intermediate 
steps of the process, whether we regard the change as proceed¬ 
ing from the side of the oxide to that of the carbonate, or re¬ 
versely from that of the carbonate to that of the oxide. A r olger, 
however, merely gives the possible cycle of changes, introducing 
it with the following cautious words : 

Whether the reverse process be possible or actual in nature,—whether magnetic 
iron, iron oxyd, iron oxydhydrat, convert into iron oxydulcarbonat,—whether the 
combination in nature last mentioned comes in this order of sequences or whether 
always first silica, or some other acid, masters the iron and afterwards yields it up to 
carbonic acid, future investigations can alone determine. That the silicates have very 
universally to all appearance furnished the material for making the beds of iron 
oxydulsesquicarbonate,—that when leached out of the atmospheric carbonated wa¬ 
ters they occasioned ironspar and ironhydroxyd layers and veins, Bischof has suf¬ 
ficiently shown. Granted the necessity under which an atom of iron lies to advance 
through its combinations only in the circle,—this circle of destiny may be thus ex¬ 
pressed :— 

Iron-oxydul 6 -sesquicarbonate 

j -oxydul-carbonate ) 

l (=ironspar, nodular iron ore) ( 
-oxyd-hvdrate 

/ amorphous 
-oxyd or red-iron- 
( stone 

-oxydul (=magnetie iron) 
malleable iron.) 




j -oxydul-silicate 
\ -oxyd-silicate 
-oxyd-hydrate 

-oxyd 


I 


-oxydul=magnetic iron 
Iron (= 


8 Or Magnetic oxide. 

* Perhaps it would be more proper to leave out entirely this reversed side of the 
circle and connect the sesquicarbonate immediately with the metallic iron, as it will 
appear probable [in Volger’s next pages] that this sesquicarbonate always interme¬ 
diates the changes expressed on this side. 



CARBONATE ORES. 


649 


It has been reported that magnetic iron ore was found in the 
coal measures and wrought in the furnaces. 6 This can only be 
explained by what Yolger says in his Studien on page 265 :— 

Blum describes ironspar crystals formed in clay iron-sparstone in the North Bo¬ 
hemia brown coal clays and afterwards converted to magnetic iron. In the same 
formation occur thick masses of earthy magnetic iron, not originating as it seems 
immediately from ironspar, but surrounded by red, partly clayey iron oxide. In 
Bohemia the case is however complicated by the jaspery burnt character of the plas¬ 
tic or porcelain clay, and the origin of these pseudoinorphs have been ascribed to 
volcanic action, even by Bischof. 7 Basalt seems to have to do with the Siegen iron¬ 
spar, converting it by free access of oxygen into magnetic iron. If the carbonized 
clays then suffered a violent sort of eremeeausis their carbonate of iron might pass 
into magnetic iron through the intermediate stage of peroxidation. Such in fact 
has been the process at the outcrops of the carbonate beds, mixed hydrous and an¬ 
hydrous ores of which become magnetic when roasted for the furnace ; the slow pro¬ 
cedure of nature being hastened by the necessities of man. 


The spathic iron mine in Roxbury Connecticut occurs in a hill 350 feet high, 
called Mine Hill, composed of mica slate and metamorpliic sandstone dipping 25° 
30° due northwest. The vertical vein of ore cuts square across this stratification 
from the base to the summit of the hill, a distance of half a mile; is of regular 
width, from 6 to 8 feet, and more than half consists of quartz gangue with no other 
foreign substances except minute portions of the sulphurets of iron, copper (yellow), 
lead and zinc. The ore itself is solid, cleaving in rhombs, yellow-grey weathering 
to reddish-brown, 57 to 60 per cent protoxide iron+ 34 to 36 carbonic acid+0.5 to 
1.5 manganese, and about as much lime and magnesia. Its brilliant and unusual 
appearance among the well knowm ores of iron led to large expenditures to work it 
as a silver ore by Hurlbut and Hawley about 1750, and by a second company the 
Bronson brothers about 1764, who sunk a shaft 125 feet deep under the directions of a 
German goldsmith, a charlatan named Feuchter, who kept alive the hopes of his em¬ 
ployers by producing silver from his crucibles. Even the failure of the company 
only changed the delusion and the overseer was suspected of having transported 
the bulk of the silver to his native land. A New York company leased the mine fox- 
42 years, stripped the outcrop half way down the slope and put in a tunnel 115 feet 
to strike the vein, on which they then drove 33 feet further. Another company 
formed in Goshen took up then the enterprise and reopened the diggings at the sum¬ 
mit until the entire property of several of the members was dissipated. Asahel Ba¬ 
con a wealthy neighbor then tried it as an iron mine and considerable quantities 
were sent to the Kent furnace to mix with brown hematite; it made a tough and 
excellent metal. Finally a furnace was erected near the mine to smelt the ore alone 
but was abandoned ; but David J. Stiles caused some of its pig metal to be con¬ 
verted into excellent steel, which raised the reputation of the ore on another and 
better basis. The old shaft and side drain were again cleaned out by a New York 
company which claimed to possess the old mining title, but the title fell into the 
hands of lawyers and nothing further was accomplished but the revival of a general 
belief in the existence of a genuine silver vein two feet thick traversing the entire 

6 Bulletin Amer. Iron Assoc., Ckarcoai Furnaces, W. Pennsylvania. 

7 Geologie, ii. p. 583. 



650 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


extent of the iron ore, at the bottom of the shaft. The German steel of Austria is 
made almost exclusively from ore of this kind. 8 


The ore of the Black Slates of VIII occurs in Bower 
Devonian strata, the Cadent Older Black Slate of Rogers. It 
appears on both sides of the great Appalachian central region, 
both in middle Pennsylvania and in middle Kentucky. The for¬ 
mation in Pennsylvania as described by Dr. Henderson consists 
of three members : the uppermost 

1. Black fissile carbonaceous slate, 180 feet. 

2. Greenish clay limestone and shale, 20 feet. 

3. Buff and grey limy shales, 25 feet. 

All three contain fossil shells, the uppermost and undermost 
containing small shells. The thicknesses given are from mea¬ 
surements at Half Fall mountain in middle Pennsylvania. At 
the Susquehanna above Harrisburg they seem to be thinner, the 
limestone having disappeared on its way east. The iron ore lies 
over the limestone near the bottom of the black coal slates, and 
is a grey or lead-colored protocarbonate, weathering along the 
outcrop (and sometimes in the body of the bed) into the common 
porous earthy brown hematite. It is in all respects a fac-simile 
of the carbonates of the coal measures ; and is in fact a prophecy 
of them,—as the black slate in which it lies is of the black slates 
of the coal measures. We are at the horizon, where the unsuc¬ 
cessful first attempt to establish a system of coal measures was 
made. A second less unsuccessful attempt was made at the 
upper part of the Devonian pile, towards the close of the Devo¬ 
nian era, in the beginning of the deposit of the XI red shale, 
when beds of workable coal were actually deposited over small 
areas, but the level of the then surface was still too uneven to 
admit of a continental growth of vegetation such as resulted in 
the great coal measures. In the early Devonian times of the 
black slates of YIH still smaller portions of the surface were in 
a fit condition to make coal, while the waters were nevertheless 
charged with carbonaceous stuff, we know not how, which 
blackened all their mud, and here and there was packed pure 
and close enough to become in time apparent coal beds some 
few inches thick. This is the formation which has done so much 

4 Shepard’s Report of the Geol. Sur. of Conn, quoted in Cotliren’s History of Ancient 
Woodbury, 1854. 



CARBONATE ORES-DEVONIAN—VIII. 


651 


mischief, deceived so many farmers, and swamped jq- ew York 
the capital of so many credulous speculators led 
on by ignorant and designing men calling themselves geologists 
to dig for coal outside the limits of the true coal regions. 

For long stretches of the outcrop lines, zigzag and parallel, of 
this formation no iron ore is seen; just as in the Coal Measures 
whole counties and regions have no ore beds at the geological 
levels where in neighboring districts ore abounds. 

In New York the ore of the Napanock furnace (A 15 on the 
Rondout river in Dutchess county) mined a third of a mile south 
of the stack and the same distance from the Delaware and Hud¬ 
son canal, is a peculiar, solid, dark-grey, homogeneous ore, con¬ 
taining small geodes of sulpliuret of iron and lenticular frag¬ 
ments of metamorphosed clay-slate and occasional markings as 
if of fossils, but not organic, and is supposed by Hodge to be of 
Devonian age, perhaps this ore of the lower part of Formation 
YIII. It is used mixed with 25 per cent its own weight of mag¬ 
netic ore. 9 

In Pennsylvania, at old Juniata furnace (E 142) the ore of 
VIIT is a bed of brown hematite, cellular and earthy, from 8 to 
10 feet thick, and pitching 45° to the northwest between the 
black slates, a few feet above the Limestone, and about 100 feet 
above the Oriskany Sandstone VII. It is the only place along 
this range of outcrop where the ore is profitably dug, although 
the limestone is frequently exposed and the place tor the ore can 
never be mistaken. But along the northwest base ot Mohanoy 
ridge, south of Bloomfield, it has been mined for old Juniata 
and Perry furnaces along a line of three or four miles, standing 
vertical and about 80 feet from the top of the Oriskany Sand¬ 
stone VII. Ho ore appears southeast of Perry furnace. It 
reappears abundantly at old Oak grove furnace 5 teet thick and 
runs along the Blue mountain eastward four miles towards Ster- 
ritt’s Gap, lying everywhere about 50 feet above the Oriskany 
Sandstone VII. 1 As all three of the furnaces have been aban¬ 
doned while the mountains must remain timberland, the ore ot 
VIII is not recommended by its treatment in this region. 

In Perry and Miffiin counties Pennsylvania there is a bed of 
ore immediately above the Limestone ot A HI. The order ot 
rocks in Perry is as follows : descending— 

9 Bulletin American Iron Association, Notes p. 6G, 1857. 

1 Dr. Henderson in Annual Report, , and Final Report, p. 3G2. 


652 


FABT II.—DIVISION II. 


VIII 


(Cadent 

older 

black 

slates) 




20 feet. 


25 feet. 


Chemung group of Hew York. 

Portage group of Hew York (Vergent)—gone. 

Genesee (Cadent upper) black slate—gone. 

' Black slate with small fossils 180 feet. 

Ikon ore. 

Greenish clay limestone, 
shales, with atrypa lim- 
itavis , etc. 

Buff, grey, calc, shales, ) 
with minute fossils. j 
VII Oriskany (Meridian) Sandstone. 

The whole group thins southeastward ; the Portage and Gene¬ 
see rocks come in above thickening northwestward ; the clay 
limestone “ preserves its aspect and thickness with little change 
over the wdiole country, though it does not exist at the Susque¬ 
hanna in the base of the Kittatinny mountain.” 3 Immediately 
above it lies the ore, a lead-colored protocarbonate of iron, 
weathering to a dark-brown cellular hydrated oxide, and thicken¬ 
ing towards the southwest. 3 It was mined at Juniata furnace 
100 feet above VII. Along the northwest base of Mahonoy 
ridge it is continuous for three or four miles and was used also 


at Perry furnace. 

In Huntingdon and Bedford counties the same ore is seen in 
lumps upon the surface along the outcrop of black slates and 
superior red shales in the bottom of VIII, along Woodcock val¬ 
ley, west of Broad Top and elsewhere.—In Juniata and Union 
counties it is not known as an ore, but in the southeast of Hun¬ 
tingdon it is placed and constituted precisely as in Little Cove. In 
Pfout’s valley towards the Susquehanna the shales above the ore 
are capped by green coarse massive sandstones growing soft 
brown and very massive towards the top full of large fossils. 
Dr. Henderson shows that this sandstone group forming high 
ridges is a local feature of the eastern end of his district. These 
black slates have been explored for coal (of course in vain) much 
more than for iron ore. The ore was once opened in Shade 
Gap, two to four feet thick, a blue carbonate like that of the 
coal measures. It passes into Fulton county southeast of Little¬ 
ton, distant 100 yards from the foot of the grey sandstone ridge 


2 Final Report, p. 355. 


3 Final Report, p. 390. 





CARBONATE ORES-DEVONIAN—VIII. 


653 


of YIII. 4 It occurs also in Backlog moun- _ , 

tain. McKinley describes it 6 in the Lewis- enns y vama, 
town valley as a noble deposit from 3 or 4 to 10 or 15 feet 
thick from 50 to 100 feet above the top of YI (Oriskany 
sandstone), sometimes in the form of a heavy square-jointed 
rock, in layers a few inches thick, not effervescing with 
acids, but growing red and magnetic in roasting. At the sur¬ 
face it is a soft brown hematite or clay oxide, sometimes cubic 
and cellular, with glazed and iridescent walls to the cells half 
an inch thick, the cells empty, or full of water or full of clay. 
At Selinsgrove on the Susquehanna he calls the black slates 
660 feet thick. In Sideling hill on the Potomac Mr. Rogers 
calls them 590. At Selinsgrove two sets of limestones are 
embraced by the black fissile pyritous slates, the lower being 70 
feet thick and lying 45 feet above the bottom. On the Poto¬ 
mac the lower 130 feet consists of black slate and ash-colored 
shales, then 200 of black slate, then 30 feet of calcareous shales 
and a few clay limestones, and lastly on top 240 feet of black 
slate. Between these two points at Lewistown and Waynes- 
burg the lower Selinsgrove limestone 10 feet thick is seen dying 
out within from 10 to 30 feet of the bottom, and above it lie 
the sulphurous slates, and the carbonate iron ore is coming in. It 
was used once in the old furnace which stood on the site of 
Roush’s forge, but the ore was neither rich nor abundant. A 
sulphureted-hydrogen spring with an odor perceptible for 100 
yards, here shows how pyritous the slates are and suggests the 
formation of the iron ore. 6 

As we proceed towards the Potomac the ore banks grow 
productive. They are situated on small runs where the change 
to peroxide has been easy. Brooldand furnace formerly got ore 
north of Atkinson’s mill in Ferguson’s valley, but it did not 
make good iron. Hope furnace also opened a neighboring 
bank. It is probably abundant along the narrow belt leading 
into Green-Briar valley. Creswell’s bank 2^ miles northeast of 
W avnesburg was opened in the same synclinal which passes a 
few hundred yards southeast of Hope furnace. Morrison’s ore 
bank northwest of the southwest end of Prater’s ridge has 
been very valuable. Mevey’s and Bell’s banks near Newton 
Hamilton at the north end of Owen’s ridge along Bine Ridge 


* Final Report, p. 394. 


pp. 399, 400. 


6 Final Report, p. 410. 


654 


PART IT.-DIVISION II. 


mountain are on another belt which is prolonged past Shirleys- 
burg and Orbisonia. Several ore banks mark the synclinal 
basin of Negro valley prolonged south westward, and have 
supplied several furnaces, most of the openings being on 
the northwest dips. Chester furnace is 2f miles northwest 
of Orbisonia, across this basin, and its ore banks along Chestnut 
ridge showed from 3 to 6 feet of ore, dipping 30° southeast. 
In great Aughwick valley very little of this ore has ever been 
discovered; nor any in Pigeon cove district. In Little cove in 
Franklin county near the Maryland State line the Warren fur¬ 
nace banks show the ore 100 feet above the sandstone of VII.* 
Three miles from Bedford, at S. Wyman’s, ore shells and bombs 
appear along the outcrop of dark fetid clay limestone; at 
Steele’s 3 miles from Savage’s; at General Piper’s, whence it was 
hauled to Hopewell furnace; and at Benard’s 3 miles further 
south, all on the same line. 7 

Along the last outcrop of these rocks before they plunge 
beneath the Alleghany mountain western county, that is along 
the northern foot of the Bald Eagle, Dunning’s and Will’s 
mountain from Muncy on the West Branch Susquehanna to 
Cumberland on the Potomac, they may be represented by 
Bogers’s section at the latter place 8 as follows: 

IX (Ponent) red sandstones, etc. 

VIII (Vergent) shales 

(Vergent flags .... 

Upper black slate (Cadent) 

Lower black slate (Cadent) 

VH (Meridian) (Oriskany) sandstone 
(Meridian) slate 

VI Limestone (Premeridian) . 

Limestone (Scalent) . 

V Variegated grey marles (Scalent) thick. 
Variegated Bed shales (Surgent) 

The lower black slates are everywhere alike, and recognizable 
by the Orthis limitaris. The lower division of the mass con¬ 
tains no clay-and-iron-limestones at the Muncy Williamsport 
end, but only cakes and nodules of blue limestone, which as w r e 
ascend the Susquehanna and Bald Eagle creek increase in num¬ 
ber and in size, while the whole mass of slates decreases from 


2,100 feet. 
1,600 


u 


u 


+ 


700 
400 
150 - 
unknown. 
200 ? 
250 


* Final Report, p. 429. 7 Final Report, p. 527. 8 Fig. 108, p. 541, Final Report. 


CARBONATE ORES-DEVONIAN—VIII. 


655 


600 feet at Muncy to 350 and 400 at Franks- „ , 

. Pennsylvania. 

town and (Jumberland. 

The upper black slates, finely micaceous (?) and with a 
minute arrow-head leaf-like fossil (graptolite ?) among the rest 
increases in thickness in that direction from 250 feet in the 
Muncy hills to TOO at Cumberland. 

Between them lie the olive shales of VIII (cadent), hard blue, 
calcareous and sandy at the northeast end, with microdon hellcv- 
striata , delthyris mucronata, fucoides velum, etc. and much more 
of a clay limestone at Lockhaven, where it contains small balls 
of iron pyrites. At Frankstown it is 400 feet thick, but soon 
dwindles away and disappears before reaching the Potomac, 
allowing both the black slates to come together. 

At Muncy the black slates of VIII are covered with an efflo¬ 
rescence of iron and alum and include lime layers. Near 
Hughville these are full of crystals of sulphuret of iron. At 
New Liberty near Lockhaven the blue pyritous lime layers lie 
under, at Jersey shore over the black slate. At Lockhaven 
they contain nodules of pyrites. At Plunkett’s creek they 
approximate a pure limestone. 

Baker’s ore bank near Altoona, opposite Blair furnace; see 
page 586 above. 

On Dunning’s creek west of Bedford, the black slates form 
an alum bank (like that in the coal measures at Blairsville) with 
nodules of limestone 4 feet thick. 

In Little cove (the rim of which consists of Upper Silurian 
No. IV, and the centre of Devonian No. VIII), the Warren fur¬ 
nace ore beds occur near the centre, in the lowest layers of the 
No. VIII slate, and yield the same grey carbonate as in 
Huntingdon and Bedford counties. 9 


In Virginia, ore is alluded to by the State geologist as exist¬ 
ing at this horizon, but nothing is known of its appearance as a 
mining belt until we cross the coal region and find its western 
outcrop through Ohio and Kentucky. Here it originates bog- 
ores which were wrought at one time north of the Ohio river, in 
Adams county Ohio, by furnaces now thirty years abandoned. 
But south of the Ohio river it obtains a local notoriety as an 


Dr. Henderson in Final Report, p. 262. 



656 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


iron ore formation, in Bullit and Nelson counties, Kentucky, 
where it is smelted, or has been, by Belmont, Saltriver and 
Nelson furnaces (K 546, 547, 548), as described in Owen’s 
second volume of the Kentucky Survey, p. 93, etc. Here in 
the “ Knobs of Bullett ” lie beds of kidney and sheet ore in a 
mass of grey and ash-colored shales overlying the black slate of 
VIII, and ranging through the southeast portion of the “ knob¬ 
bly region ” along the waters of Cane river, southeastwardly 
into Nelson county. The section given is as follows : 

Knob freestone, locally inclosing ore, see analysis No. 489. 

Grey shales with kidney and sheet ore, see analyses No. 488, 493 

Black shelly shale, locally inclosing limestone, . . 15 feet. 

Black shelly shale, greyer and more leafy, . . . 60 feet; 

and these knob ores, like the carbonates of the coal measures, 
vary in thickness from 3 to 8 inches, the balls of kidney ore 
being disseminated over a pavement of sheet ore. This fact 
alone, repeating itself in so many cases, is sufficient to convince 
us that the precipitation of the carbonate of iron was an origi¬ 
nal cheinico-mechanical deposition, accomplished, through a 
mass of wet consolidating rock, rapidly enough at first to make 
the single bottom layer homogeneous, and more and more 
slowly afterwards (as the rock acquired greater consistency 
through time, its own chemical arrangements and increasing 
weight of new formations to its top), until all downward move¬ 
ment of the carbonate of iron became inrpossible and localized 
adcentric movements alone continued; these finally stopping, to 
allow the vein crystallization to proceed, as cracks developed 
themselves either in the rock layers or in the plate or in the 
nodules of the ore. Considerable bodies of the ore are duo* 
from the precipitous bluffs of the river, in strippings from 20 to 
25 feet wide, and delivered at Belfont furnace for $1 50 to 
$2 00 per ton. The iron is in request for nails. The ore analyzes 
as follows: Spec. grav. 3.446; iron 32.62; magnesia 11.75; 
time 6.28; manganese 1.32; phosphoric acid 0.71; sulphur 
0.29; potash 0.75; silica, etc. 11.18. The flux got near the 
furnace contains also 13.22 of magnesia and 1.51 of sulphur. 
(Dr. Peter’s Report.) 

At Nelson furnace the ore can be delivered for $0 75. In 
Salt Spring Hollow this ore makes a solid 12-16 inch pavement, 
28 feet above the top of the black slates of VIII. Higher up 


CARBONATE ORES—DEVONIAN-VIII. 


657 


just under the knob freestone a poorer sheet ore 
can be got. The flux (magnesian limestone) comes 
from between Beech fork and the furnace. Hearthstones come 
from Hart county. The knob ore is probably workable from 
southeast Bullit county into Larue. Beech prevails with some 
oak,hickory, poplar, walnut and cedars. (Owen’s Beport, iii. 95.) 

In Eastern Kentucky Bath county the knob ore of VTTT 
is observed in the grey shale over the black slate on Mud creek 
waters, the quantity of ore increasing gradually southward. 
Five beds of block and kidney exist on Salt lick and Clear creek. 
Plenty of ore here to run a furnace and make good soft iron. 

In Rowan county where the black slate is of great thick¬ 
ness (over a hundred feet), and the asli-colored shale is poorly 
developed, the kidney ore is not in any abundance. 

In Powell county on the contrary the ash shales are in 
great force, 140 feet thick, with some disseminated carbonate of 
iron. Between Stanton and the forge is seen the following sec¬ 
tion :—Dark shale—ore band of carbonate of iron 3 to 6 inches 
—shale etc. 18 inches—ore band 2 to 4 inches—dark shale 
etc. 8 to ten feet—ore band 2 to 4 inches—dark shale etc. 4 feet 
—small kidney ore—shale etc. 3 feet—ore band 2 to 6 inches— 
dark shales 3 to 4 feet. 

In Estill county the ash shales contain considerable beds 
of ore, lying some 400 feet below the California ore banks of 
XI, in a section like the following:—White pebbly sandstones 
(Ho. XII)—coal shales 10 to 15 feet—ferruginous shale— 
rougli ore—shale—lower main ore (Ho. XI)—upper beds of 
white and buff sub-carboniferous limestone—sandstone—grey 
middle beds of limestone—sandstone 110 feet—white lower 
beds of limestone 95 feet—knob freestone 200 feet—ash 
shales and knob ore 140 feet—black shale (Devonian Ho. 
XIII) 100 feet below water level. Frequent indications of 
these ores of YHI are seen between Hardwick’s creek and the 
forge, especially 3 miles from the latter. On the Estill and 
Madison line the knob sandstone curiously disappears, although 
it is a formation 400 feet thick on the other side of the Kentucky 
river. At Knob lick the summits are capped with sub-carboni¬ 
ferous limestone, while the creeks flow over black slate ; the ore 
of the intermediate ash shales are represented only by spherical 
segregations of carbonate of lime and suljphuret of iron in the 




(358 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


black slate, with small quantities of sulphuret of zinc and pos¬ 
sibly a little lead. Red lick shows the ash shales on the black 
slates again, and they contain on Station Camp creek consider¬ 
able quantities of the ore. 

In Lincoln county the bed of Flat lick is black slate over 
which are the ash shales with large quantities of disseminated 
carbonate of iron. At the head of the lick the black slates seem 
to have been on fire and roasted the ore over them to a dark red 
oxide for the furnace. The Flatlick is a depression of many 
acres, and around it “ the shales show four or five distinct bands 
of carbonate of iron interstratified in the shale in a vertical 
height of 5 to 6 feet which will average 6 inches in thickness.” 
The ore contains 3.T7 of iron, requires little limestone, contains 
only 0.21 sulphur, and tons of it lie strewed about the place, 
which is well worthy of the attention of the iron manufacturer. 

In Boyle county at its southern edge, on Dick’s river, Flat 
lick is repeated in Knob lick, which however only cuts down 
to the top of the Devonian black slates. Much ore is dissemi¬ 
nated here also through the ash shales at 40 and at 90 feet above 
the black slate, but not so abundantly as in Lincoln. 

Hence southwestward through Casey, Russell, Cumber¬ 
land and Monroe counties to the Tennessee line, a great 
fault or dislocation carries forward the outcrop of Devonian 
black slates and ash shales in a straight line, but no beds of iron 
ore are described as characterizing the latter; but in its place 
seem to have come in beds of chert and sandy lime layers, 
especially where the shales and slates join in Monroe county. 
There is in Monroe county an immense mass of shaly rocks 
which appear to be wholly wanting in Cumberland and Russell, 
and in this new state of things the iron ore disappears. Hor is 
ore mentioned in these shales in Taylor and Larue. 1 


In Northern Pennsylvania Tioga and Bradford counties the 
Lower Devonian olive slates of VIII contain a fossiliferous iron 
ore on which the Mansfield furnace is now running. It is in 
the range of two beds of limestone 100 feet apart and the 
uppermost or thinest 50 feet below the top of the Vergent rocks 
of Rogers. The other is 10 to 15 feet thick upon the Susque- 


1 Owen’s Kentucky Reports. 



CARBONATE ORES-DEVONIAN-VIII. 


659 


hanna, 4 at the mouth of Carbon creek, __ _ . 

and at Wellsborough there are several ' enns y vania - 
strata. It is full of fossils, which where the limestone is 
absent have been turned to or coated with the ore. It has 
been long opened at Roseville on Mill creek as a red sandy soft 
stone, blood red when scratched, in flags of two or three inches 
thickness, making in all two feet, over 3 feet of red sandstone, 
under which are many large balls of sandy ore. 2 In many of 
the surrounding hills the ore is soft enough to be used for red 
chalk. It is mined 4 miles west of the Mansfield furnace. 
South of Mansfield one mile it is opened by Mr. Boxby for paint, 
12 to 15 inches thick under 6 feet of red shale under six feet of 
red sandstone. Some of it is oolitic (fish-roe) or seedy like the 
fossil ore of Y. This ore probably appears again on Troup’s 
creek at the State line, half a mile above the saw-mill. The 
red band of YIII which the author traced westward throughout 
the northern counties towards the Clarion river in 1841 is in the 
position of this ore and Mr. Rogers is disposed to identify them. 3 

On Schroeder’s branch of Towanda creek in Bradford county 
a red fossiliferous ore bed 2 feet thick with another red fossil- 
iferous iron sandstone (like that of Montour’s Ridge), 8 feet 
under it, hold somewhat the same position. 4 

In Northern Pennsylvania an ore in the Devonian red 
and grey beds (Yergent, Chemung and Portage) YIII and IX 
appears on Larrey’s and Lycoming creeks, where they break out 
from the Alleghany mountain north of Williamsport Lycoming 
county Pennsylvania. On Lycoming creek 7 miles above its 
mouth it is from l\ to 2 feet thick, under olive slates, and in the 
neighborhood of two layers (3 feet each) of coarse, grey-red, im¬ 
pure limestone, a confused mass of shells ; over which extremely 
fossiliferous olive shales; then thick and variegated shales and 
slates. On Larrey’s creek north of Jersey shore, between Knox’s 
Mill and the forge are the variegated shales and sandstones, high 
over which are the deserted ore drifts ot the Farrandsville Fur¬ 
nace Company. Two miles west of Larrey’s creek in Canoe 
run the ore is 3 feet thick, divided in the middle by 2 or 3 


a Mr Rogers’s text and diagram on page 311 are exactly the reverse of each other, 
owing probably to the construction of the diagram from an ascending series of rocks 
written down the page. 

3 Fin. Rep. p. 312. 


4 Fin. Rep. p. 309. 


coo 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


inches of slate. In another opening, 6 inches of slate separate 
a lower 18-inch and an upper 6 inch bed of the ore, which is 
everywhere a compact bluish-brown plate, under olive shales. 
Two miles north of Jersey-shore the shales are fossiliferous and 
the ore 18 inches thick. It continues up the valley of the Sus¬ 
quehanna and appears at Davis’s one mile east of main Chatham 
run, half a mile distant from the base of the Alleghany moun¬ 
tain. Up Beech creek (west of Lockliaven) IT miles the ore has 
been again recognized. 

In the Third or Bennett’s Branch Bituminous Coal Basin of 
the Upper Susquehanna, where the grey sands of X come up 
above the water level at least 200 feet, there are many little yel¬ 
lowish balls of excellent iron ore associated with an indifferent 
shelly limestone, 4 feet thick, full of fossil shells, and remains of 
one or two fishes. 6 


In Central Pennsylvania Huntingdon county, iron ore at 
the base of the (Umbral) red shales of XI has been mined and 
used for Trough creek and Hopewell furnaces. It is a brown 
jaspery ball ore in some of its layers, and a lead-colored heav;y 
manganesian ore in others. In the tunnel in Hopewell gap 
through Terrace mountain a bed from 2 to 3 feet thick of brown 
compact jaspery good ore and yellow slaty ore stands between 
steep strata of red shale (XI) above and coarse yellowish sandstone 
(X) below. Thin layers of sandy ore come in among the red 
shale beds and the sandstone floor is full of iron. The bed ia 
evidently an original deposit from the red shale upon the face 
of the older white sandstone sea bottom. In encircles the Broad 
Top mountain with its group of slender parallel coal basins, and 
large masses of hematized outcrop ore cover the slope where the 
dip is gentle. Manganese accompanies the iron where it ia 
opened in Ground Hog valley. Above the iron ore appears a bed 
of massive, tough and fetid limestone several feet thick, which 
has probably had some hand in the chemical precipitation of the 
iron ore bed under it. It is sometimes red and ferruginous itself 
and is covered sometimes by many feet of red calcareous shale, 
containing bitter spar. The limestone is almost destitute of 
fossils. 8 

s Hodge in Fifth Annual Report of Geol. Sur. of Penn., p. GO. * Final Report, p. 530. 



ANALYSES OF IRON ORES OF THE UMBRAL RED SHALES OF PENNSYLVANIA. (NO. XL) 


CARBONATE ORES-SUBCARBONIFEROUS-XI. 


661 


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062 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


The Umbral red shale of the bituminous coal region is accompanied throughout 
nearly its entire outcrop along the Alleghany mountain, and towards the northwest, 
by a very peculiar variety of iron ore, which, in certain localities already described, 
is destined to become of much economical importance. This ore occurs high in the 
formation, usually not more than a few feet below the bottom of the Serai conglo¬ 
merate. It is the grey and mottled carbonate of iron described in the chapter upon 
the Umbral strata. The ore is of somewhat various external features, but its most 
prevailing character is that of irregular knotty nodules of a mottled red and whitish 
or grey color. These lumps, which are usually imbedded in a soft reddish shale, are 
often, especially near the outcrop of the stratum, coated with a brown crust of the 
peroxide of iron. On Lycoming creek, the purer specimens of the ore, consisting 
principally of the crystalline carbonate of iron and silica, are internally of a 
pinkish-yellow color, with a velvet-like aspect. In other districts, as that of Ti¬ 
oga river, near Blossburg, the ore is in regular continuous layers, certain parts 
of which are mottled, and have almost an oolitic structure. It is only in certain 
local tracts of country that this interesting ore is rich enough in iron, and thick 
enough to be of value to the manufacturer of iron; but where it can be used, 
the metal procured from it is of remarkable excellence. The chemical nature 
and geological relations of this ore are very similar to those of the carbonate of 
iron of the coal strata, and the conditions under which it originated were obvi¬ 
ously very nearly identical with those which produced that variety. Beside the 
nodular crystallline carbonate now described, the Umbral shales contain, espe¬ 
cially in their southwest outcrops, as in Somerset and Fayette counties, a species 
of ore identical with the ordinary compact or earthy carbonate of the coal measures. 
This latter kind belongs to a small subordinate group of coal-bearing rocks, which, 
in the districts mentioned, underlie the true Serai conglomerate, or constitute its 
lowest member, indicating a gradual transition from the Umbral series . 7 

The ore of XI is mined into in the greenish buff shales 
under the Conglomerate on Meadow run branch of Roaring 
brook, south side of the Lackawanna valley, six miles east of 
Pittston. It dips northwest 10° to 20°, between sandstone rocks, 
and varies from 1| to 2 feet and even 3 and 4 feet in the upper 
drifts. Large nodules are found imbedded in the fire-clay roof, 
one foot thick. An impure limestone is found not far off. 8 
The outcrop has been opened for a mile upon the lands of the 
Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company, but cannot be found in 
the upper valley of Spring brook nor at Cobb’s gap of Roaring 
brook. At the mines the ore lies imbedded in 6 feet of fire¬ 
clay (containing the usual stigmaria) in two layers, the lower 
one a continuous band some 18 inches and the upper a layer of 
fiat balls 12 inches thick. The buff, green sandy shales below, 
rest on grey compact sandstone, “ the upper bed ” Mr. Rogers 

7 H. D. Rogers’s Final Report, vol. ii. chap. vii. p. 734. 

3 Final Report, vol. ii. page 405. On page 357 another and lower position is assigned 
this ore, viz. “just above the upper layers of the Vespertine sandstone (X), or among 
the lowest shales and fire-clay beds of the Umbral series” (XI). 


CARBON ATE ORES-SIJB-C ARBONIFEROUS-XI. 


663 


thinks u of the great Yespertme or Lowest _ 

, ~ r , , Pennsylvania. 

carbomierous series. Over the ore bed are 

30 feet of solid line grey, argillaceous shaly sandstone, in the 
middle of which runs a foot of lire-clay with scattered ore balls. 
Over this are 30 feet of red and yellow shale. 9 

The ore near the outcrop is a mottled dark green and red sub¬ 
crystalline mixture of the carbonates of iron and lime with the 
peroxide and protoxide of iron, containing besides alumina and 
some silica. It is readily fusible and holding a small amount of 
carbonate of lime assists in fluxing other ores. Its percentage 
varies between 25 and 45. 1 

Mr. Rogers expresses the opinion that the ore of XI at Scran¬ 
ton, in Pennsylvania, is “ a concretionary deposit, collected 
from the imbedding fire-clay and overlying strata at their out¬ 
crop. 2 The oxide and carbonate of iron of which it is composed, 
have been primarily diffused through these rocks, in part per¬ 
haps, under the form of sulphuret of iron, and subsequently 
gathered thus into sheets and layers of balls, by infiltration of 
the rain and other surface waters. In confirmation of this view 
of the origin of the ore, it appears that the deposit grows less 
rich in iron wherever it is followed far into the hill, or is 
covered with tight overlying strata [so] as to have experienced 
a less than ordinary share of percolation from the surface. In 
these positions the ore is little else than a fire-clay with a merely 
greater than usual impregnation of the oxide of iron.” Two 
inconsistent ideas are here presented as one; for the lack of ore 
must be due either to a lack of surface water (when the upper 
rock is too tight) or to a lack of iron in the upper rock. But if 
the latter be the cause, then the distribution of the segregated 
ore has nothing to do with the present surface or its outcrops; 
beds of ore will underlie the Lackawanna coalfield anywhere, 
wherever the Upper rock (to the ore) has been sufficiently fer¬ 
ruginous. But Mr. Rogers is wrong again to ascribe so great a 


9 Mr. Rogers also gives a vertical section which does not agree with this description, 
perhaps because taken at another locality. It reads downwards Conglom. sandstone 
130 feet; ore balls; conglom. sand. 70 feet; false bedded sandstone 40 feet; ore ball 
stratum 2 to 3 ; sandstone 39 ; shaly sandstone 30 ; sandstone 15 to 25 ; ore ? sand 10; 
fire-clay 6 including two beds of ore 1 foot each; shale 10 feet, etc. etc. 

1 Rogers, ii. p. 358. 

9 Considering the extent of the ores of XI this expression “ at their outcrop ” is 
incomprehensible. 


664: 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


part of the action to surface rain water. The original sea-water- 
soaked condition of the sub-carboniferous formations, previous to 
and after its emergence is a much worthier, because more 
mighty agency. Hence again the ore bed can have no real, 
but only here a local and deceptive relation to the surface 
outcrop. 

In Kingston hollow, a gorge through the conglomerate 
north of Wilksbarre the ore of XI is just reported 4 as opened 
in two beds 6 feet apart the upper one 37 and the lower one 47 
inches thick, solid ore, the roof being a shale with walls of ore, 
and the interval and the floor solid sandstone ; the distance on a 
level below the lowest coal bed (above the conglomerate) is 
about 1200 feet with a dip of 14°, making a distance of 200 feet 
vertical. If this be a fair estimate of the size of the deposit, it 
is perhaps the finest exhibition of it yet known. To the geolo¬ 
gist it is interesting as the analogue of the Lockhaven (Farrands- 
ville) and Hopewell (Huntingdon, Broad Top lower) ore; for it 
is said to lie under 60 feet of calcareous sandstone, under red- 
sliale, under another bed of sandrock, under another red shale, 
under the conglomerate. 6 7 

The upper ore of XI occurs under similar aspects beneath the 
conglomerate around Broad Top, and has just been opened (Feb. 
23,1859) on Sandy run, half a mile above Hopewell. Huntingdon 
county Pennsylvania, in fire-clay, and in two layers of flattened 
balls in all 24 feet thick. It is quarried at Ralston in Lycoming 
county, at Blossburg in Lycoming county, in Somerset, Fayette 
and Westmoreland counties Pennsylvania and the neighboring 
counties of northwest Virginia, and along the whole western bor¬ 
der of the coal area from northeastern Ohio into middle Tennes¬ 
see. To talk of its slate being a segregation at the outcrop is 
simply absurd. The deposit of fire-clay which accompanies this 
ore is as remarkable as any other feature of the formation. Is 
it also a segregation at the surface? Of course not. Like the 
fire-clays beneath the beds of coal, which often contain balls of 

6 Mr. Lippencott of Wilksbarre ; and letter of Wm. Brisbane, March 1859. 

7 In the north edge of the Wyoming anthracite coal basin, 500 or 600 feet below the 
conglomerate XII, in Hertzoff’s hollow, north of Kingston, two beds of black, heavy, 
sandy ore, in fact a fine conglomerate cemented with an iron paste, the upper 2 feet the 
lower 4 feet thick occur, with 5 feet of hard rock between them, and olive ferruginous 

shales above and below them. Some of the ore has been taken to Danville and used_ 

Final Report i. p. 407. 


CARBONATE ORES-SUB-CARBONIFEROUS—XI. 


665 


ore, tins fire-clay was a great sub-continental _ 

& „ Pennsylvania. 

deposit or coetaneous group ot area-forma¬ 
tions, containing its own plant roots and its own contempora¬ 
neous infusion of iron ore, such as informs the bog beds of 
the present day. In and upon this fire-clay of XI, in many 
parts of the continent, the plants, as Lesquereux describes, 
grew, under conditions favorable enough to make a coal bed, 
or to begin one, for the process in a thousand places was 
arrested before it was complete. We therefore see over the 
Broad Top ore of XI a stratum of clay and flaggy sand 18 inches 
thick, and then traces of coal, upon which lies the great grey 
sand rock of XII. 

At Blossburg we have the following section under the con¬ 
glomerate (XII) which is here 20 feet thick. 


Feet. 


Conglomerate (XII). 

Black slate (answering in place of a coal bed) 
Grey ore, in balls and plates .... 
Fire-clay containing balls of ore ) 

Bed shale, with a six-incli stratum of balls > . 
Blue shale ) 

Nut ore in clay (mined in a 5-foot gangway) 
One or two beds of fire-clay .... 


Slate 


. 20 

. 2 
. 1 

. 14 

. 2 



Massive ball ore, three plates, 8, 2^, 5 in. (mined) . 2 

Blue slate ......... 10 

Ore in two plates, averaging 4 inches each (mined) . 5 

Blue slate, the remainder of the 60 feet down from XII. 

Bed shale of XI; with 

Ore near or upon its uppermost layer. (June 5, 1857.) 


In Bogers’s Final Beport 6 he inserts. Humphrey’s and Evans’ 
section, the lower part of which reads thus descending:—Pea- 
conglomerate (XII) 7 feet, white sandstone 20,—shales with lean 
oolitic ore 1^, ore to 2, red and mottled shale 6, ore £, 
shale 10, shale with coarse nodular ore 2, clay-sand and shale 
20, shale (with li of grey ore) 4, slate with 7 inches ore 6, slate 
6, dark brown, mica sand, 20, red and green shale 5, grey-green 
sand 150, to level of railway, red shale 4 to 5, sandstone (X) with 


6 Vol. ii. page 520. 


666 


PAllT II.—DIVISION II. 


a lime-bed thirty feet above the bottom 150, red shale and marl 
30, green flag sands.—-The long balls of ore in the shale under 
XII lie close together and form half the stratum; they consist 
of concentric crusts peeling off on exposure; under them lies a 
nearly solid bed of heavy yellow-grey ore 6 inches thick of a 
true oolitic structure. 

These ore beds seem more numerous here than at other places 
only because the Blossburg strata have been very thoroughly 
explored. All the pronged mountains of the Alleghany table¬ 
land have their summits of conglomerate and coal measures 
underlaid with more or less of these beds of XI ore. 

At the Towanda coal mines in Bradford county, the following 
section is seen: 

Feet. 


Conglomerate in a massive plate, . . . . .30 

Flinty thin bedded sandstones, forming the rapids and 
falls on the head waters of the mountain brooks, 
without intercalations of slate . . . . .30 


from 1 to 3J 
. 25 


Coal A (80 feet below coal B) 

Flinty thin-bedded sandstones 
Ball ore, in shale and fine clay 

... 50 to 60 
Plate ore, grey, in variegated clays (100 ft. below A) . 3 

Grey sandrock . . . . . . . .70 

Bed shale XI, upper band, at least . . . .45 

Grey rocks then follow, under which comes the 
Bed shale XI lower band, and then 
Pale-green grey very thin flagstones X, for several 
hundred feet. 

This plate of grey carbonate of iron, 7 three feet thick, divided 
diagonally into large tabular masses and reposing upon a varie¬ 
gated clay of extremely fine texture, like fuller’s earth, comes 
out under a romantic cascade, and fills the bed of the torrent 
with its fragments, some of them several feet in length. 8 

At Cash’s (Mason’s) Opening on Towanda mountain, 
coal A under the Conglomerate, one foot thick, has a bed of 
grey carbonate of iron of a very fine grain and great weight 
connected in some way with it. It comes out in pieces 6 or 7 


7 Johnson’s Analysis gives to it earth 30 per cent, oxygen 14 per cent, water 24 per 
cent=iron 32 per cent. 

** Iteport of J. P. L. to Mr. Perkins, 1853. 



CARBONATE ORES-SUB-CARBONIFEROUS-XI. 


667 


inches thick. On Fall creek where the for- __ 

,. t i i p i i ^ k Pennsylvania. 

mer section was made, a bed ot shale 15 or 

20 feet below coal A, and 2 or 3 feet thick is full of nodules ; 
and the same shale and ore occurs on the Barclay property 
on Coal creek. Thus however the seventy feet of iron ore strata 
at Blossburg are represented on Towanda mountain. 

At Ralston (on Towanda mountain continued westward be¬ 
tween two parallel anticlinal axes,) J. T. Hodge reported in 
1810 9 the Conglomerate XII from 15 to 150 feet thick, the top 
formed of a solid bed of white sandstone 60 feet thick, forming 
precipices everywhere along the brow of the mountains, the 
haunt of innumerable rattlesnakes and the floor of a magnificent 


primaeval pine forest, in the solemn silent shades of which may 
still be heard the frequent long sighing fall—softened by dis¬ 
tance—of some giant stem exhausted by a thousand years. On 
Dutchman’s run a slide had made a clean section of the moun¬ 
tain side from the coal down to the Devonian base. Four feet 
below the Conglomerate, in a bed of dark shale (representing 
again the coal), lies the ore, several feet 1 thick, in irregular 
knotty lumps closely bedded in soft reddish and pure white 
clay, and forming half the bulk of the stratum. It is a white 
crystalline protocarbonate of iron resembling a fine-grained 
sandstone or magnesian limestone, incrusted with brown oxide. 2 
Since Mr. Hodge visited the place, and in fact since the Bloss¬ 
burg beds were fairly opened, the Ralston ores have been 
developed, and the lower beds of Blossburg found in their pro¬ 
per places here (1854). 

To the northwest the ore extended to the Fourth Great Basin 
where it has been wrought 8 miles northwest of the Great Mea¬ 
dows, beyond Wellsborough. 3 

This ore has been seen or opened on in a hundred places along 
the Alleghanies to the southwest, wherever in fact, the anticlinal 
axes between the first four basins of bituminous coal bring up 
the base of the Conglomerate and the red shale of XI. But 
nowhere has it been used for furnaces until we approach the 


9 Fifth Annual Report, p. 137. 

1 At Red run 34 feet thick (Hodge, Fourth Annual Report, p. 138). Mr. Rogers 
makes the mistake of 14, in copying him. Final Report, ii. p. 470. 

2 Analysis by Dr. Rogers, p. 201 :—Protoxide iron 41.22, silica, etc., 28.80, carbonic 
acid 24.00, water 4.28, alumina 1.00, lime 0.50. 

3 Hodge, Fourth Annual Report, p. 149. 


668 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Maryland and Virginia line. In Broad Top it lias been already 
described. 

On Lick run near Farrandsville Hodge gives the following 
section: 

Conglomerate, XII, merely a flaggy white sandstone. 

Red shale, containing two beds of ore, twenty feet \ 

apart, one 6 and the other 10 inches thick. “ The > 30 feet, 
cpiality is good but the quantity insufficient.” ) 

Grey Sandstone like X . . . . not less than . . .250 feet. 

Red Shale, . . . Lower band 4 . 65 feet. 

Grey Sandstone, with a few pebbly beds,. 

Mr. Rogers is so unfortunate in this and some other sections 
in his Final Report as to misread the reports of his assistants 
and invert the section, placing as he does in the next sentence, 
the two iron ore beds in the Upper red shale, instead of in the 
Lower. His work is full of such blunders, the discredit of which 
would have been saved him had he given proper credit to his 
various authorities wherever it was due, or rather republished 
their reports in their own language, as he should have done. 
The ore in this lower bed of red shale seems to be represented 
in the Blossburg (Tioga) region by the Wilson creek ore, 100 or 
200 feet below XII. 

In Somerset and Fayette counties Hodge and Lesley 
reported it at various places, but no doubt it will be found here¬ 
after of a workable thickness in the wild country of Clearfield, 
Clinton, Centre and Cambria further north. Xorth of Altoona 
it is very thin. Between the two branches of the Moshannon 
its outcrop is everywhere marked by bog ore springs. The 
Philipsburg openings never yielded much ore. On Muddy run, 
between Clearfield and Cambria, fine bogs come from its out¬ 
crop. In the Second Basin at Kartliause its appearances are 
promising. The Kartliause furnace mined eoal-measure-ores and 
not those of XI. Bog ores occur along under the outcrop of 
XII on the Sinnemahoning waters in the Third Basin, and can 
be traced southwestwardly as far as Warner’s or Caledonia. 
Two miles above this place on Burnet’s branch the hard ore ap¬ 
pears in a fine natural exposure, 8 feet above water level, under 
overhanging cliffs of the Conglomerate, as a solid bed (with very 
little shale) between 3 and 4 feet thick, the ore like that de* 

4 See Fourth Annual Report, p. 130, and Final Report, p. 470. 


CARBONATE ORES-SUB-CARBONIFEROUS-XI. 


669 


scribed by Ilodge at Astonville. Under it is _ , 

n i J & j , Pennsylvania. 

nre-clay and over it nodules ot ore scattered 

through 3 feet of brown shale, under 1 foot of black shale, 
on which presses the Conglomerate sandrocks. We have here 
again the representative of a coal seam over the ore. Pass¬ 
ing over the anticlinal Elk mountain into the Fourth or Toby 
creek Coal Basin a line of bog ore springs discover the ore 
at the base of XII along Clarion river. Still further north 
the ore betrays itself by lines of bogs, as at the Bed Mill, 
near Instantur, in the Fifth basin ; between Smethport and 
Warren; on the Potato creek and Tuniangwant road, and 
five miles south of Lafayette. The ore itself is obtained six 
miles north of Smethport, where a vast bog spreads over the 
hill slope within fifty feet of the summit. Bogers thinks this 
fine textured ore with a white core to be of considerable value 
and it is certainly of great extent. Five specimens analyzed by 


Dr. Owen from McKean 

county, 

gave : 




Protoxide iron . . . 

22.61 

20.09 

23.24 

36.00 

8.05 

Peroxide iron . . . 

7.86 

12.04 

12.24 

10.00 

60.45 

=Iron. 

23.10 

24.01 

27.35 

35.00 

48.65 

Carbonic acid . . . 

16.50 

18.00 

17.20 

24.65 

5.70 

Insoluble silicates . . 

48.50 

38.50 

38.50 

25.00 

17.00 

Lime. 

1.50 

4.50 

2.00 

1.50 

.50 

Alumina. 

1.50 

4.00 

3.50 

1.00 

4.00 

Magnesia. 

1.40 

1.40 

1.40 

1.25 

.36 

Phosphoric acid . . 


.50 

.tr. 

.30 


Sulphur. 


.tr. 


.06 


Water. 


0.80 



3.50 


Returning to Southern Pennsylvania, to Cambria and 
Somerset counties, bog ore springs show the place of the solid 
ore of XI in Burgoon’s gap, at the Pennsylvania railroad 
summit and along the Alleghany mountain, sometimes on the 
sides of the gorges and sometimes on the broad, gentle, western 
slope of the mountain, near the summit knobs. Loose pieces of 
the ore were dug near the head of Incline Plane 7. At Cono¬ 
ver’s fork the bog springs are a mile west of the summit, XII 
being 50 feet thick, the dip being 15° to 20° west. It appears 
















670 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


with the fossiliferons limestone in Flaglierty’s gap east of Berlin, 
and in the gorge of Castleman’s river through Negro mountain, 
south of Somerset, and in the gorge of the Foughiogheny 
through Laurel hill west of the Turkey foot. 

On the east slope of Laurel hill two miles from Cambria 
furnace under white sandstone (XII) 10 feet, are red shales 8 
feet, red ore 16 inches, then blue and red shale. The ore has 
been mined also at Laurel hill furnace six miles southwest of 
the Conemaugh, on the northwest dip, 18 inches thick over white 
clay and under red shale, under white sandstone. 

Formation XI, as it appears on Laurel hill, is a series of alternating red shales and 
red sandstones, including a massive stratum of calcareous sandstone passing into 
sandy limestone, the upper surface of which is about one hundred feet below the top 
of the whole mass. The entire thickness of Formation XI on the Conemaugh is some¬ 
what more than two hundred feet; this it retains as we pursue it southward, though 
the composition of the several members of the formation undergoes a material 
change. While this important and well characterized stratum retains generally, in 
other sections of the State, the character of an argillaceous red shale, this and the 
immediately adjacent belts contain a larger proportion than usual of alternating beds 
of compact, grey and red sandstones, which increase in relative quantity as we pro¬ 
ceed southward. The shales becoming more silicious, the calcareous sandstone, 
above mentioned, grows also more calcareous, passing in some places into an excel¬ 
lent limestone occasionally thirty feet thick. 

The iron ore so frequently to be met with in the upper part of this formation, is 
not seen in the Conemaugh, but following the belt southward along Laurel hill, we 
find many signs of it, as where the Johnstown and Ligonier turnpike crosses the 
ridge. At this point the quality of the ore is not promising, while, upon the western 
slope of the mountain, the limestone, which underlies it, is quarried and used to some 
extent. The calcareous rock shows itself likewise at the crossing of the Somerset 
turnpike, but unaccompanied by indications of the iron ore which ought not to ap¬ 
pear in contact with it, but in its vicinity. It exhibits here, as in many other 
places, in a very remarkable degree, the action of violently and irregularly eddying 
currents at its formation, the often massive beds showing innumerable oblique and 
meeting layers that plainly mark its unequal deposition. 

Still further south, on the summit of the mountain, at the head of Garey’s run, 
the iron ore of the red shale is exposed in a very accessible manner. It occurs on 
a large tract, the surface of which slopes gently and uniformly to the southeast in obe¬ 
dience to the general inclination of the strata, the ore band occupying the uppermost 
layers. This ore has been used at Fayette furnace, on Indian creek, being got by 
stripping and turning up the soil and superficial shale to the depth of 1.} to 6 feet. 
At' a spot where w r e caused the ore band to be exposed, it measured 8 inches in 
thickness and proved to be of excellent quality. It is said to have occurred in some 
spots as thick as 3 feet when it was worked. The line of highest land along the 
mountain ranges a little west of this tract. The crest consists of Formation XII, a 
somewhat lower parallel ridge of which two miles further east, bounds the red shale 
tract on the lower side. In a little ravine which intersects the easternmost of these 
sandstone ridges appears the iron ore in large slabs, lying loose in the channel of 


CARBONATE ORES-SUB-CARBONIFEROUS-XI. 


671 


the stream. This is on the property of Mr. John Dull, g. Pennsylvania, 
about four miles south-southeast from Garey’s. Some 

of the slabs of ore are 6 inches thick. Appearances here indicate the exist¬ 
ence of two layers of the ore. A seam of excellent coal, 2 feet 6 inches thick, 
lies over the ore at a distance of about thirty feet. This bed probably belongs 
to a thin lower group of coal rocks Avhich, in this southern section of the State, 
interpolate themselves as a separate formation between the upper surface of 
the red shale and the lower limit of Formation XII. These we shall have occasion 
presently to describe, when treating of the corresponding part of the next western 
or Ligonier basin, where they are more developed. They make their appearance in 
the prose t basin at least as far north as the neighborhood of the Stoystown turn¬ 
pike, where, at the head of Jones’s creek, we find these carbonaceous rocks regu¬ 
larly interposed, with a thickness of about thirty feet between the red shale Forma¬ 
tion XI and the sandstone Formation XII. Here the inclosed coal seam is only 9 
inches thick ; it lies about 30 feet above the iron orh of the red shale and reposes 
immediately beneath the rocks of Formation XII, the total thickness of which, at 
this place, does not exceed thirty feet. But south of the Youghiogheny in the Li¬ 
gonier basin, west of Laurel ridge, and near Stuart’s furnace, the coal bed under the 
conglomerate is 4 feet thick and 20 feet beneath the iron ore, which lies in four 
layers in brown shale, two of them within three feet of each other, the upper one 
1 inch, the lower from 1,} to 3 inches thick. Four miles south of the furnace near 
the National road two layers yield eight inches of good ore. 

The iron ore of Formation XI is seen near Henry Whipkey’s, on the Clay turn¬ 
pike, where it occurs at a small distance beneath Formation XII in several bands, 
one of which measures 5 inches, and another 2 inches. Here, however, more dig¬ 
ging than we had time to bestow was requisite before we could decide the exact 
position and value of these layers. South of the Youghiogheny in this basin, the 
ore has not yet [1840] been minutely traced, but of its existence we have had evi¬ 
dence in the bog ore deposits of the springs. These are seen on the other side of 
the mountain, at the crossing of the Turkey Foot road over a branch of Meadow 
run, which descends into the basin next west. 6 It also occurs on Chestnut ridge 
where that is crossed by the Clay pike. 

Two miles east of Blairsville in the gorge of Chestnut 
ridge where the Devonian rocks appear upon the great anticli¬ 
nal separating the Second and Third Basins, C. HilFs ore of XI 
is a bed of close nodules, 1J- feet thick, immediately overlying 
the limestone of XI, two feet of it visible and few fossils. The 
ore is exposed along the river for two miles over the arch, on the 
terrace under the cliffs of XII. At J. Hill’s on the towpath the 
solid ore 18 inches thick has over it nodules scattered through 3 
feet of reddish shale, over which are 15 feet of flagstones and 
then a limestone 2 feet thick under a coal bed 4 feet thick. 6 If 
this be not all that is left of the conglomerate then there has 
been some mistake in confounding this ore ot the lowest coal 
measures with the ore of XI. 

‘ Hodge and Lesley, Report in Fifth Annual Report (1841), page 85. 

• Fifth Annual Report, p. 65. 


672 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Near tlie old furnace on Jacob’s creek on Chestnut ridge three 
miles southwest of Harman’s, the ore of XI was formerly 
wrought, in several bands, in all 8 inches thick. 

On the west slope of Chestnut ridge the ore has been 
but little noticed between Blairsville and Jacob’s creek. In 
Whitemill creek gap, above Breakneck furnace at its entrance, 
the red shales and limestone are seen, the latter 4 feet thick op¬ 
posite the furnace, with the ore 80 feet above it ranging along 
the terrace under the conglomerate. In the Youghiogheny Gap 
2J miles above Connelsville the conglomerate forms the riffle at 
Bothrock’s Eddy, and the ore lies immediately under it higher 
up the river. In Dunbar creek gap the conglomerate, a hun¬ 
dred feet thick, lies on a six-inch bed of coal, under which are 
olive and dark blue shales with the ore and then limestone. At 
the Old Union furnace, a mile above Dunbar mill, the conglo¬ 
merate crops out above the creek 80 feet high. Shute’s river 
gorge also has a furnace in it, opposite and above which stand 
the red shales, limestone and sand rocks of XI with the ore. 
At the National road a head branch of Bedstone cuts down to the 
red shales and limestone, but the ore was not discovered. 7 The 
ore has been discovered and occasionally used in the same range 
south of the Yirginia line. 

In Middle Virginia it has been discovered at several points 
in Greenbriar and Monroe counties, but not tested, and not de¬ 
scribed. (W. B. Bogers, Second Beport, p. 83.) Further south 
it has received no attention. 


Passing over to the western Outcrop of the ore of XI in 
western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio we can say only that it 
has been but little seen until it crosses the Ohio river. 

In Mercer county Pennsylvania the one or two small 
coal beds beneath the so-called conglomerate begin to assume 
importance as members of a distinct system, and one of those 
beds becomes the workable beds of Estill and other counties of 
eastern Kentucky. At Georgetown in northwest Pennsylvania 
the shales below the conglomerate and above the coal contain 
two ore beds one foot apart, the upper 7, the lower 5 inches 
thick (of a beautiful blue color). The coal bed beneath them is 
3 feet thick two miles from the village towards Greenville. In 
the high ridge west of the Shenango river near Sharon it is even 

7 Dr. Jackson in the Final Report, vol. ii. p. 600+ . 



CARBONATE ORES-SUB-CARBONIFEROUS -XI. 


673 


4J feet thick, and extending into Ohio may per- _ „ , 

haps be the Warren and Akron bed. The ore of ' en ucfe y 
these snbconglomerate coals fed the two furnaces on Sandy creek. 

On its western outcrop in eastern Kentucky it is that 
the characteristic features of this curious formation receive their 
finest development. The conglomerate forms a wavy line of 
cliffs from 50 to 100 feet high from Greenupsburg and Hanging- 
rock on the Ohio across Kentucky into middle Tennessee. All 
the head waters of the Sandy, Licking, K-ed, Kentucky and 
Cumberland rivers break out from this plateau of rock through 
a wilderness of canons. The most picturesque allees of inaccess¬ 
ible crags, covered with the ancient forest and inclosing brawl¬ 
ing streams, precede the bewildered explorer in all directions. 
It is the labyrinth of America, through which once passed the 
slender thread of westward emigration and eastward cattle 


trade, which, forever broken, now surrounds it on the north and 
south, leaving its “ State roads ” to grow up a denser thicket 
than the forest through which they were originally cut, and its 
stage routes to be represented by bridle paths. Along the 
western margin of this secluded carboniferous region and over¬ 
looking the lower Devonian country, the ore of XI has been 
opened in many places. It underlies a coal bed, which under¬ 
lies the conglomerate. At the Pine Table (a most curious square 
fragment of the conglomerate, two acres in extent and 60 
feet high, left standing on the summit of a hill near the 
county corner of Estill, Bath, and Montgomery, and weathered 
into its four vertical sides so as to suggest rudely not only a 
common table but its four legs) the coal bed is 30 feet beneath 
the lower edge of the conglomerate. Elsewhere the distance 
varies and diminishes sometimes to a few feet or_even inches. 
Under the coal are coal measure shales from 30 to 50 feet, brown 
and ferruginous, and piled upon the ore bed, which is from one 
to three feet thick and lies directly upon the sub-carboniferous 
limestone (of XI). It is of this ore that Owen speaks when he 
says in the first volume of his Keport, page 200: 


In Carter county, on the waters of Tygert creek, good ore of the class 
of hydrated oxide occurs, yielding 50.07 per cent of iron. (See No. 12 of Dr. 
Peter’s Report.) This ore occupies a different geological position from the re¬ 
gularly stratified ores just described, belonging to the coal measures; since it is 
found in connection with the sub-carboniferous limestone, very much after the man¬ 
ner of the ores of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, in the western part of 

43 


674 


l’AKT H.-DIVISION II. 


Kentucky, which have already been treated of in general terms in first chapter of 
this Report. So far as my examinations have yet been carried, it seems to be most 
abundant in the dividing ridge between Tygert and Kinniconick, near the confines 
of Lewis county, near Mr. Macleas, where the belt of the sub-carboniferous lime - 
stone is wider, and better developed, than it is in Greenup county. This belt of 
sub-carboniferous limestone widens in its southern range ; near the heads of the 
Buffalo branch of Tygert creek it attains its greatest elevation in Carter county ; 
bearing thence to the southwest to the waters of Triplett creek, in Fleming county. 
I have not yet had an opportunity of following it in that direction beyond the con¬ 
fines of Carter county. 

Kenton furnace H 523 and New Hampshire furnace II 525 
use this sub-carboniferous ore of XI, an analysis of which is 
given by Owen in his first volume, page 77.® It is labelled 
“Speckled Iron Ore” from N. II. furnace replacing limestone 
ore , often over chert , then not so good , Greenup county Ken¬ 
tucky — 

=17.927 metallic iron. 

Silica . . . 35.4 

Insoluble silicates . . 49.940 1 Alu’na tinged with iron 14.0 


Lime and magnesia . 0.5 


Alumina 

. 13.500 


Soda 

. 4.502 


Magnesia 

, . .362 


Potassa 

. .885 Water 

. 5.110 


The chert here spoken of is not that of the burstone deposit 
described further on as characteristic of one of the principal 
iron ores of the coal measures, but a local prophecy of that more 
general fulfillment. It supervenes between the top of the sub- 
carboniferous limestone and this New Hampshire furnace ore 
sandstone roofing, and thus replaces more or less the ore itself. 
It contains sometimes a large amount of alumina and soda and 
a considerable amount of potassa and phosphoric acid, which 
was to be expected, since the animal remains of this horizon are 
abundant. 

In the southern tongue of Pulaski county, says Owen, 9 
the black thinly laminated shales under the conglomerate, con¬ 
tain at every locality where they outcrop, quantities of carbon¬ 
ate of iron, even in more considerable masses than at the falls 
of the Cumberland in Whitley county (notorious as the “ silver 
mine ” locality), where a section reads as follows :—Sandstone ; 


Peroxide iron 
Protoxide iron 


20.000 

5.040 


8 Repeated on p. 198. 


9 Vol. i. p. 235, 236. 


CARBONATE ORES—-SUR-CARBONIFEROUS—XI. 


075 


coal 10 inches to 3 feet; sandstone forming 
the escarpment above the falls 90 feet; top ' entuck y« 
of the falls; massive conglomerate oeds (XII) 48 feet; black 
shale with clay iron stones etc. 12 feet; sandy shale 6 feet 
at foot of falls. The ore here contains sulphuret of iron 
and zinc, a little lead, antimony and arsenic, and some 
scarbroite. The localities referred to above are on the head 
of Indian creek; in Rockhouse valley; on Sam’s Beaver 
and on Sloan’s South forks. In the first locality the ore would 
equal perhaps a continuous band of 1^ to 2 feet. On the east 
side of the Cumberland river in Whitley county opposite 
Williamsburg the King’s coal section shows much carbonate of 
iron in the shales near the river under the overhanging cliffs of 
conglomerate. 1 

In Bath county towards the head of Clear and Stone quarry 
creeks, the ore of XI is traceable along the top of the sub-car¬ 
boniferous bench which runs along at two-thirds the height of 
the hills above the streams, over the clay freestones, over the 
Devonian black slates. Sometimes there lies six or eight inches 
of ochreous earth between the limestone and the ore bed, which 
itself lies imbedded in a grey, yellow and pink clay. If the 
ore lies directly on the limestone the miners say it is “ burnt 
out.” It varies from 1 to 1 \ feet but rises even to 4 feet, and 
has above it (15 feet) the lowest bed of coal, consisting of 2 feet 
of coal over and 1 foot under 1 foot of parting clay. The 
coal lies about 24 feet below the, conglomerate. Dr. Owen sus¬ 
pects after careful examination that a specimen of ore found 
down the creek and which when analyzed afforded a consider¬ 
able percentage of copper, came from this ore bed. Some 
specimens have a peculiar dark appearance as if it might con¬ 
tain black oxide of copper, but two such specimens when 
analyzed showed none. 

In Rowan county the ore of XI seems to be silicious but 
has scarcely been investigated. 

In Estill county the ore of XI is partly black and partly 
kidney ore, principally carbonate but mixed more or less 
with limonite. The old furnace at the head of Miller 
creek finds its ore over the sub-carboniferous limestone, 
which here, as in Powell county, is divided into at least 

1 Owen’3 Kentucky, Vol. i. p. 240. 


676 


rAET II.-DIVISION II. 


two members by over one hundred feet of sandstone. Cottage 
furnace was lately built to run on tliis ore where it can be 
reached by stripping only ten feet of cover off, and averages 9 to 
12 inches thick, lying 15 to 20 feet beneath the cliff of Conglo¬ 
merate sandrock (over the lower layers of which are a few small 
beds of ball ore). At one opening it measured 22 inches, with 
three clay partings, making 16 inches of ore in all. At the 
California bank it is more highly oxidized and often deep brown. 
Between Red and Rock lick creeks, on the War fork, Breet 
creek, etc., the ore will probably be found under the coal, which 
is there 3 or 4 feet thick ; but it is an unexplored region yet. 
In fact from this on to the Tennessee line, through Rockcastle, 
Pulaski, Wayne and Cumberland, no iron ore is reported upon 
the subcarboniferous limestone. Nor does any extensive deposit 
of it seem to be noticed around the western coal field, upon the 
subcarboniferous rocks which range through Sampson, Logan, 
Todd and Christian counties. Here the great ore deposits of 
the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers at a somewhat lower geo¬ 
logical level (?) take its place. 

The sub-carboniferous rocks consist of several members, as 
described by Owen. 2 Immediately under the Conglomerate 
occur locally soft grey, greenish, purple and reddish shales or 
marly deposits sometimes of great thickness, the “ long running 
rock ” of the salt borers. Two or three hundred feet beneath 
the Conglomerate (on the Trade water) is an upper mass of lime¬ 
stone, 50 feet thick and characterized by numerous Archimedes , 
with Pentremites and interesting Orinoids. One hundred feet 
further down is a second lower mass of limestone 150 feet thick, 
containing Pentremites of large size, one being 2f- inches high 
by 2^ across the basal plates. Then follows (downwards) 200 
feet of sandstone close grained, smooth bedded, and hard as 
quartzite, occasionally containing fine Lepidodendra / this rock 
is No. X of the Atlantic outcrop mountains, and over it are thin 
coal beds representing the south Virginia coals. Beneath this 
sandstone comes the great body of the Subcarboniferous Lime¬ 
stone of the west, the Lithostrotion beds, so called from a fossil 
reed-like coral, converted usually into flint, which abounds in 
them and strews the surface of the Barrens, those originally 
open prairies of Kentucky, now timber-grown and full of sink 

* Vol. i. p. 79. 


CARBONATE ORES-SUB-CARBONIFEROUS-XI. 


677 


holes. The bottom of this formation grad- 
uates into clayey and hydraulic limestones, ' en UC 
and semi-crystalline beds of entrochites and reticulated corals , 
and spirifer striatus (?) These Lithostrotion beds, says Owen, 
are the repositories of the west Kentucky (Trigg, Lyon, Cald¬ 
well, Livingston and Crittenden counties) and west Tennessee 
iron ores, and his views of their origin are important. He 
describes them as lying always unconformably over the edges 
of the limestone beds on the slopes of the hills, mixed very v 
irregularly w T ith ferruginous clay and chert and conveying 
the impression of an infiltration. 

Although great uncertainty exists as to the extent of any bed, 
still such a degree of uniformity is observable in the general 
bearings of the individual deposits that he has been led to sus¬ 
pect their connection with regular veins of determinate bearing, 
traversing the limestone formation of the country. In Critten¬ 
den and Lyon counties he found them ranging north 18° to 20° 
east, as in Calloway county Missouri and Hardin county Illinois, 
and was able in several instances to trace these ores into fissures 
of the Sub-carboniferous Limestone with well defined walls, 
bearing from north 15° to 22° east and from 24 to 27-J feet apart. 
In these fissures he thinks the superficial deposits will be found 
to originate and that the ore there exist in a more concentrated 
form and a lower state of oxidation ; that highly heated carbon¬ 
ated waters have dissolved both iron oxide and silica out over 
the vents and down the declivities, where they dropped the 
protoxide to form peroxide of iron under the action of the 
atmosphere, while the principal body of silica, specifically lighter, 
segregated as chert among the ore, while the commingled clays 
came from the washings of the crevices and seams of the lime¬ 
stone ; dripping into vacancies they formed stalactite pipe ore ; 
oozing through coarse gravelly earths and lumpy clays they 
coated silicious and argillaceous nuclei and produced pot ore ; 
percolating through porous earth they made honeycomb ore ; the 
quantity of ore depending on the duration of the overflow, the 
configuration of the surface, and the degree of saturation. 

It is impossible to agree at once or entirely with a theory so 
essentially volcanic, especially when we consider the fixed geo¬ 
logical horizon at which and the great extent of country over 
which these deposits occur, and how their nature accords with 


678 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


the constitution of all the limonite beds of the Palaeozoic system, 
derived we are assured from the peroxidation of various beds ot 
carbonate of iron. A description of these deposits in Tennessee 
is given in the chapter on brown hematite ores preceding this, 
and while much doubt is cast upon their precise subcarbonifer- 
ous age, and much difficulty must be overcome in explaining 
their precise mode of production, here seems to be the place in 
the order of description of the ores of the United States where 
they ought to come. 


Ascending now into the coal measures proper, above 
the lower Great Conglomerate, commonly assumed as the basis 
of that system, we have a difficult task before us, to present in 
any clear, concise arrangement, the numerous beds of carbonate 
of iron which are interleaved among the beds of coal and lime¬ 
stone, in the shales and sandstone intervals, and even in the 
very beds of coal themselves. Their general characteristics 
have been discussed at the beginning of this chapter. It would 
require a volume to catalogue all the localities where they make 
their appearance at the surface. It is possible here only to de¬ 
scribe the areas within which they occur, the belts within these 
areas into which their more important exhibitions arrange them¬ 
selves, the beds of coal which are more immediately related to 
their more conspicuous layers, and the principal centres of 
manufacture which have caused the largest groups of mines. 

The areas within which the coal measure carbonate 
ores occur are of course the coal basins of the east and west, 
the anthracite, semianthracite and bituminous regions of Penn¬ 
sylvania, western Maryland and Virginia, eastern Ohio, Ken¬ 
tucky and Tennessee, northern Alabama, central Michigan, 
western Kentucky, southern Illinois, the western parts of Iowa 
and Missouri and the east of Kansas. The deepest parts of these 
areas are the Pottsville, Shamoken and Wilksbarre anthracite 
basins, the region southeast of Pittsburg and Wheeling, the 
centre line of the west Kentucky basin, and the eastern border 
of Kansas. Other things being equal, the deeper the coal basin 
the more numerous the layers of iron ore ; but in point of value 
to the manufacture of iron, the ores are chiefly confined to the 
lower coal measures, or the rocks towards the bottoms and there¬ 
fore round the shallower parts of the basins or areas. Hence 



CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


679 


The principal belt of ore deposits encircles the cen¬ 
tral coal areas. To explain tliis more fully,—the carbonifer¬ 
ous system falls into four divisions, thus : 

Upper Barren Measures, in southwestern Pennsylvania ; 

Upper Coal Measures, of Wheeling, Pittsburg, Madison- 
ville ; 

Lower Barren Measures, from 400 to 700 feet thick ; 

Lower Coal Measures, of Johnstown, Freeport, Athens, 
etc., etc. 

These formations lie the one upon the other, and all upon the 
Great Conglomerate at the base ; they occupy therefore succes¬ 
sively smaller and smaller areas, each lower one spreading its 
scalloped and fringed edges out beyond the equally ragged 
limits of the one above it, until the uppermost of all is seen con¬ 
fined to the country surrounding the extreme southwestern 
corner of Pennsylvania,—the high sheep-growing coalless table 
land of the Coal Formation. The lowest layers of the lowest 

coal measures on the contrary may be seen, by looking at the 
map of Pennsylvania given on page 534, to stretch long fingers 







680 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


out towards the New York line ; and on the preceding map of 
Ohio to cross the State in a fringe through Trumbull, Portage, 
Stark, Wayne, Holmes, Coshocton, Muskingum, Licking, Perry, 
Fairfield, Hocking, Jackson and Scioto counties. A general 
dip southeastward of 10 or 20 feet to the mile prevails between 
this waving outcrop and the Ohio river, and brings the Lower 
Barren measures and then the Upper Coal beds into the hill 
tops and finally beneath the level of the rivers. The Ohio river 
is seen flowing round the Upper Coal measures in the soft shales 
of the Lower Barren measures as far as the south point of Ohio, 
when having reached a point opposite the deepest place in the 
coal field, it turns at a right angle and breaks out northwestward 
through all the lower coals. Referring now to the photo-litho¬ 
graph map of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, in the 
Guide, it will at once appear how all the numerous furnaces of 
these States are situated on a great belt, broken indeed by 
lateral intervals, 2 but based upon the iron ores of the Lower 
Coal measures. In these Lower Coal measures are many layers 
of ore, but one, the bulirstone ore, surpasses in importance, and 
is in fact the chief occasion of the numerous iron-works which 
mark that map. The other beds are subordinate enough to it 
to warrant us in saying that the manufacture of iron in the west 
would in its absence have been postponed for many years. It 
is necessary therefore to define the place of this bed in the series, 
and at the same time its principal congeners will find their places 
also. 

The Lower Coal Measures in the Alleghany river region, 
where the greater number of furnaces are, as described by 
McKinney, Boye, Holl, Jackson, Lesley and others of the Penn¬ 
sylvania survey, form a system by themselves included between 
the triple conglomerate at the base, and the triple Mahoning 
sandstone four hundred feet above it, and may be approximately 
represented by the section on the following page. 

The proportions vary frequently as we might expect, and 
rapidly from mile to mile; but so constant and on so grand a 
scale were the agencies which formed the members of the sys¬ 
tem, so steady were the oscillating movements of the continent 
and so continental the expanse of watery marsh and penetrating 

3 These intervals are due partly to local diminution in the great ore deposits, but 
chiefly to the wildernesses left between the rivers and great lines of railroad transporta¬ 
tion. 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


681 


Lower Coal Measures. 

Mahoning Sandstone, in triple division, in all, . 75 feet. 


Shales, . 

• • • • 

50 

a 

coal E the Upper Freeport sometimes over 

6 

u 

limestone e, 

• • • • 

8 

u 

Shales, . 

• • • • 

50 

a 

coal D the Lower Freeport bed, over . 

3 

u 

Sandstone with thin coal, 

• • • • 

70 

a 

Shales with thin coal beds, . 

• • • • 

100 

a 

coal C the Kittannina; 

(Cannel), seldom, 

4 

a 

Shales, sandy and clayey, . 

• • • • 

25 

a 

ore and buhrstone, average 1^, from 1 to . 

10 

a 

limestone c (encrinal) 

. greatest thickness 

23 

a 

Shale, sandy 

. . . over 

30 

a 

coal B 

. . less than 

4 

a 

Shales with thin coal seams, 

• • • • 

40 

a 

coal A 

. always thin 

2 

u 

Conglomerate sandstone, 

• • • • 

15 

a 

Shale, sandy 

• • • • 

50 

a 

Conglomerate sandstone, 

• • • • 

30 

u 


sediments that the main features of the section as a whole suffer 
hut little change as we pass eastward towards the anthracite or 
southwestward towards the Kentucky fields. The Top rock is 
the Mahoning sandstone everywhere, on Broad To]), in the Cum¬ 
berland and Somerset, Ligonier and Monongahela basins and in 
southern Ohio. The interval indeed on Broad Top is but about 
200 feet, and in Somerset 400 feet, but the two principal coal 
beds lie always the one near its bottom and the other near its 
top, the ore maintains its status at Johnstown on the Conemaugh, 
as at Hanging rock on the Ohio, and the very fossil shells, 
leaves, fruit and stems of trees, preserve throughout their seve¬ 
ral and separate stages and mark the separate beds. 

The Lower Barren Measures are equally extensive, but 
very differently characterized, namely, by bands of red shale and 
massive beds of limestone at their upper limit. There is in 
many places under this limestone a coarse conglomerate-like 
sandrock (as at Armagh for example on the Conemaugh) which 
may be assumed with advantage as the classical upper limit of 


682 


rART II.-DIVISION II. 


this second division of the Carboniferous system, which varies 


locally in its dimensions several hundred feet. 


At Pittsburg its 

section may be represented thus: 






Sand and Shale, .... 



• 

30 feet. 

limestone j 



• 

4 

u 

Shale, red, ..... 



• 

12 

u 

limestone i 



• 

4 

a 

Shale, yellow 10, buff 18, red 4, . 



• 

32 

a 

limestone h 



• 

3 

u 

Shale and slaty sandstone, . 



• 

10 

u 

marl, red, .... 



• 

10 

a 

Sandstone, grey building stone, . 



• 

70 

u 

Shale, olive, .... 



• 

100 

a 

limestone' g 



• 

2 

a 

coal G 



• 

1 

a 

marls, red and blue calcareous, 



• 

20 

u 

Sandstone, slaty, .... 



• 

30 

u 

Shale, sandy .... 

thick 

, say 

50 

a 

coal F 



• 

1 

a 

Mahoning Sandstone, triple 



• 

75 

a 


In some places these red shale bands are from 30 to 50 feet 
thick and mark the country so plainly that the traveller least 
experienced in geology must recognize their regular recurrence. 
The barrenness of this section in coal and iron is as marked a 
trait in the anthracite region on the one side as in the west Ken¬ 
tucky field on the other, and the limestones which it contains 
possess far fewer forms of life than those below it or above. 

The Upper Coal Measures lie also between great sandrocks, 
assuming the one last mentioned as a fixed horizon. At its up¬ 
per limit lies the great Anvil Rock of Kentucky, represented at 
the extreme eastern limit of the bituminous area, by the con- 
glomeritic sandstone over the three great beds of Salisbury in 
Somerset county Pennsylvania. These three beds are the three 
principal Monongahela (or Waynesburg and Greensburg) beds 
of Jackson and McKinley’s reports, the beds of the Wheeling 
region on the Ohio, the Kos. 9, 11 and 12 of Owen, Lyon and 
Lesquereux. 4 These, even at their maxima localities in west¬ 
ern Kentucky are but 5, 8 and 4 feet thick ; but in Somerset 
county Pennsylvania they are 10, 11 and 15 feet in thickness, 

4 See vol. iii. Owen’s Report of Kentucky, 1857. 




CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


68 3 


in a six mile area; and in the Dauphin county anthracite 
coal basin they are quite as large. 5 In spite therefore of 
the enormous local size of the lower anthracite beds, the 
Mammoth and Jugular veins, and the general five and six 
foot thickness of their representative beds B and E in the 
Lower Coal measures of the west we may hesitate to give to 
the Lower Coal measures rank above the upper in any other 
respect than that of more extensive area. But in iron wealth 
there is no comparison between them. In Pennsylvania there 
is but one place where they have furnished stock for furnaces, 
namely along the western foot of the Chestnut ridge from Union- 
town southwest into Virginia, under the Pittsburg coal bed, 
where it occurs also in the Somerset basin, and the Frostburg 
basin. In Kentucky nearly the same horizon (shales of bed No. 
9) is marked by vast numbers of nodules of iron ore some of 
great size and containing shells and petrified wood, 6 and coal 
No. 7 has black band over it. 7 8 But the black band on which 
Alexander’s furnace at Airdrie in middle Kentucky was built to 
run, is at the upper limit of the Upper coal measures, over bed 
No. 12.® 

In the Anthracite region the general disposition of the 
beds of coal (marked black), of ore (marked with ovals or cir¬ 
cles), of shales (shaded), of sandstones (left nearly white), and of 
fire-clay beds (left quite white), with their thicknesses in feet is 
shown on the accompanying plate of vertical sections, with a 
scale of a hundred feet along the side. 


6 This is not the place for a minute discussion of the coal beds; nor are the conclu¬ 
sions of Lesquereux (see Palaeontological report in Owen’s third volume) set aside by 
anything here said. His identification of the Pittsburg coal bed with No. 8 (a thin) in¬ 
stead of with No. 9 (a thick) coal bed in western Kentucky, is cordially accepted. But 
in an attempt to give a clear bird’s-eye view of the Upper Coal measures it would only 
confuse the view to describe the local disappearance of one and substituted appearance 
of another. The whole group actually consists of at least six beds. 

• See Lesquereux Report to Owen, vol. iii. p. 542. 7 Owen, vol. iii. pp. 14 and 524. 

8 Lesquereux to Owen, vol. iii. p. 548. 


684 


PART n. —DIVISION n 


S.C. WILKSBARRE 

XXII V XXIII XXIV 


Kl 




8 

•>2 




SCRANTON 

XXVI, XXVII yxvm 


^jana^ 

)—( 


B.V. 

30 



S u C ' ^ C ' air Dear Pottsvi,le > Schuylkill Co., Pa. (P. W. Shaffer.) 

XXIII. Lee s mines, below Wilkesbarre. (A. McKinley.) 

“ XXIV. Wilkesbarre section. (Logan, McKinley.) 

XXV. West Pittston boring; Wilkesbarre basin. 

XXVI. Griffin Lot, Scranton. W. Basin. (Needham.) 

XXVII. Diamond Mine survey, W. basin, near Scranton. (Needham I 
* XXVIII. Scranton, Wilkesbarre basin. (H. D. Rogers.) 


















































































































































































































CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


685 


In the Anthracite coal basin around _ _ . 

Pottsville in Schuylkill county Pennsylva- ' enns Y vama. 
nia, there are (according to the Report of H. D. Rogers to II. 
C. Carey, published 1849), two groups of ore beds, the lower 
one including the great Mammoth coal bed, and the upper one 
overlying the Black-mine red-ash coal bed of Guinea hill. 
Describing all these ores together in a descending order, we 
have: 

Near the summit of Guinea hill a two foot and a half stratum of balls, often closely 
packed, and sometimes 2 feet long each ball, the whole thickness of iron being say 
14 to 18 inches; dip 40° southward; iron 26 percent; mining $1 60 per ton. 
Three or four layers of balls, loosely or closely set, or plates of ore, the thickest 4 
to 6 inches, 32 per cent ore, lie somewhat higher in the hill. These ores range 
through the basin and show sometimes a good abundance of materials. Mr. Rogers 
reported that he “ entertained no doubt it was destined to afford an ample supply 
of a cheap material for iron works.” The prophecy may yet be fulfilled, but few 
men now assign any value to these ores, after ten years of experience and in face of 
the inexhaustible rich ores of the Lower Silurian and Primary rocks to the south 
and east. The hardness of the rocks in the anthracite region makes mining more 
expensive than in the west where the same ores abound. 

A little below the Big Tracy coal bed are two layers of ball ore. On the Spohn 
tract they are 16 feet below the coal, dip 30° south, and would yield 7 or 8 inches 
of 28 per cent ore in one gangway, costing $1 75 a ton. 

McGinnis’s shaft in Pottsville, sunk (absurdly enough) upon the anticlinal axis 
south of the vein, cuts, at 38 feet down, a 9-foot bed of soft shale in which lie five 
courses of superior ore (dipping 40° south in the tunnel which offsets in the shale) 
viz.,—Ball ore, 3 inches; solid ore 6 inches; ball ore 6 inches ; solid ore 5 inches; 
ball ore some inches,=in all say 16 inches, of 33 per cent ore, costing say $1 60 to 
$1 7o per ton to mine. 

In the lower white ash series, near Neighley’s or Fisher’s tunnel in Minehill on 
the Wetherill tract, a blue band ore, 6 inches thick, with balls in black slate above 
it and black slate below it, was used at the Mt. Carbon Furnace (Pioneer). It was 
33 per cent ore, and cost $2 00 to drive through and $1 75 to mine in the breasts. 
At Pinkerton’s shaft it is 7 to 8 inches thick with some balls above it, and cost $1 60 
to mine. In the Pinkerton colliery it lies 15 feet above the seven-foot coal (abo^e 
the Mammoth bed) and is 10 inches of ore in 4 feet of gang. 

This seven-foot coal is triple, and has between its two lower benches, cakes of ore 4 
or 6 inches thick, “ exhibits numerous scales of coaly matter, impressions of sigil- 
laria, etc. and the whole body of the ore is indeed highly carbonaceous” resembling 
black band ore , but without the bituminous matter which distinguishes the latter. 

Close under the seven-foot coal, in Silliman and Fisher’s colliery, lie large flat 
smooth cakes of ore from 4 to 14 inches thick and sometimes '2\ feet long, separated 
by equal intervals in blue fire-clay. Rogers estimates the ore at a 5-inch average, 
and mining cost at $2 50, the ore being close-grained, uniform and 33 per cent. It 
ranges extensively along the south foot of Mine hill, through the Mount Laffy tun¬ 
nel, in Pinkerton’s colliery and elsewhere. 

Mann’s ore lies 80 to 100 feet below the Mammoth white ash vein on the south 
side of Mine hill on Mount Laffy, dipping 5° under 200 or 300 acres of soil. Six 
layers in ten feet of soft laminated slate lie as follows, descending: 


686 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


Covering of 2 to 20 feet, 

Ore balls, coarse, close together, 2 to 5 inches. 

Interval of 15 inches, 

Ore plate, finer, 30 per cent, 3 to 4 inches. 

Interval of 2 feet, scattered balls of good ore, 

Ore nearly continuous, good, 3 to 5 inches, 

Interval of 2.} feet, 

Ore, 33 per cent, nearly continuous plate, 4 inches, 

Interval of 1J to 2 feet, 

Ore plate, superior, 37 per cent, 2 inches, 

Interval of 15 inches 
Ore plate, 40 per cent, one inch thick. 

In all the ore is 18 inches thick. It ranges westward along the mountain and 
can be mined for $2 00 per ton and sometimes even for $1 50. 

Here we have an illustration of those sections which seem 
open to no other explanation than that of original intermitted 
and quasi-instantaneous protocarbonate deposition. It is hardly 
to be imagined that so regular a set of layers would follow each 
other at such short intervals in a travel downwards towards a 
base of leaching; nor that they were arrested each one by a 
separate belt of impervious clay; still less that they were con¬ 
verted into such clean plates of carbonate from disseminated 
sulphuret of iron, and at different stages so near together, and 
with so little sign of peroxidation; nor that they were 
charged with carbon from the coal beds below. They have 
all the appearance of being actual mud layers originally so 
spread at short intervals of time over the sea bed; and why 
not? 

One anthracite iron ore locality has acquired some 
celebrity by originating hopes, which have been disappointed, 
that the black-band ore of Scotland would be here found rivalled. 
The Pottsville basin is divided at its western end like the tail of 
a fish into two long narrow lobes or prongs, the Dauphin basin 
on the south and the Wiconisco on the north. In Klinger’s 
Kausli gap through the northern barrier mountain of the 
northern prong, where the measures rise from the basin at an 
angle of 45° the following section is given on page 190 of the 
second volume of the Final Report. 


No. 13. Two small coal beds, 2 feet each and 6 feet apart, 
No. 12. Coal 4 feet good, under sandstone, 

No. 11. Coal (Black valley) 24 feet thick, 

No. 10. Coal (Blackheath, Peacock) 4 feet, good, dip 58°, 
No. 9. Coal (Lomason or Big vein) 10 feet (4 + 6), 

No. 8. Tron-ore-ooal. 2 feet, shafted on the mountain. 


Interval. 

40 feet. 
40 
20 
100 
60 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 

Coal 4 feet solid, parted by 12 feet of slate from 
No. 7. Coal 11 feet, (at Donaldson 10,) on egg conglomerate, 

No. 6. Coal small in a shaft upon the mountain, 

No. 5. Coal small in a drift, 

No. 4. Coal 6 feet, good, in an old drift 100 feet in, 

No. 3. Coal 5 feet, with but 2 feet of good coal, in 100 feet, 

No. 2. Coal 7 feet, good, crushed, once worked for 173 feet, 

No. 1. Coal 2J feet thick in the shaft 

Red shale of XL—The thicknesses of rock in the intervals are 
not given but probably were measured on the water level 
through the gap. 

The continuous plate of dark grey argillaceous iron ore, very 
carbonaceous and full of vegetable fossil forms which lies 
immediately over coal No. 8 of our section, is the black-band 
ore in question. It is separated from the top layer of coal by 
12 inches of black slate and its maximum thickness of 12 inches 
is maintained for 300 yards in the eastern gangway, but in the 
gangway on the western side of the gap dwindles to 7 inches. 
About 2 miles east of the gap it is thin and disappears before 
reaching the mines at Donaldson; neither is it found, in its 
well known place, towards the west at Bear gap. 1 Parts of the 
bed are decidedly pyritous, and although Mr. Rogers seems 
desirous to speak hopefully of it, all expectation of its manufac¬ 
ture has been abandoned, and it is the only place in the anthra¬ 
cite region where the most diligent search for a profitable black 
band ore has promised anything to hope for. 

In the northern prongs of the bituminous basins 
a multitude of local outcrops of ore have been recorded but 
they are of doubtful size and quality and buried in almost inac¬ 
cessible mountain wilds, or perched on the flat summits of the 
synclinal mountains. The first locality going west where the 
ores of the lower coals have been much tried is at Farrandsville 
on the west branch Susquehanna above Lockhaven, where a 
great furnace was erected and a quarter of a million of dollars 
sunk. The ore is a poor nodular stratum in shale under a 6-foot 
fire-clay bed under the third coal bed. Still farther west around 
Philipsburg the buhrstone ore begins to show itself in its semi¬ 
carbonate semi-limonite character with the ferriferous or encrin- 
ital limestone under it; and along Clearfield creek are larger 
quantities. A furnace was once built at Ivartliaus but with no 
avenue to market except the deceitful river. Hereafter this will 


687 


Pennsyl. 


372 

288 

130 

192 

87 

90 

60 


1 Rogers’s Final Report, vol. ii. page 119. 


688 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


be a seat of tlie iron manufacture. 2 John James’s section of the 
ores at the old furnace, slightly corrected by Ilodge, is given in 
the Fifth Annual Report as follows: 

Hill summit 565 feet above the river. 

Slaty sandstone and a coal bed 2 feet thick 
Black slate 1, coal 6, fire-clay 2£ (479 feet) 

Brown sandstone ..... 

Coal 1, fire-clay 2, limestone 3J, shale and poor ore 
1 loot ........ 

Brown sandstone ....... 

Coal 3, slate 1^ ...... . 

Grey sandstone ....... 

Coal 3f, shale (with 26 inches good Kidney ore) 11 
Coal ......... 

Brown sandstone and slate ..... 

Coal 3f, fire-clay 2 \ ..... 

Brown sandstone ....... 

Coal 1, ferruginous fire-clay 3, shale (with 25 inches of 
good “ red ” iron ore) Ilf . 

Shales and slates with a little unimportant ore 
Coal 1. . . . . . . . 

Brown rock . . . x 

Coal, thin seam. 

Conglomerate and sandstone XII, to river 
Hine miles higher up the river the red ore is thicker. 

In the Broad Top coal basin in Middle Pennsylvania 
is a fine exhibition of plate carbonate ore, on a high hill near 
Hopewell, over Sandy creek, and high up in the Lower Coal 
Measures. It is 4 feet thick, underlies a coal bed of equal size, 
was used for 20 years to make a rather coal-short iron, and is 
about to be worked again in connection with the red-short 
brown hematites and the fossil ore of the Upper Silurian rocks a 
little to the west of it. It occurs in other parts of the mountain 
but has nowhere else been exploited. 

At Johnstown on the Conemaugh the iron ores of the 
Lower Coal measures have received perhaps their best exami¬ 
nation. The town and furnaces and rolling mill of the Cam¬ 
bria Company occupy a triangular plane where the two branches 


Feet. 

79 

n 

45 

n 

25 

H 

37 

14i 

1 

21 

6i 

35 

16 

22 

1 

240 


2 See J. T. Hodge’s description of the ores in the Fifth Annual Report of the State 
Geologist for 1841, pages 49, 50. 



CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


089 


S. W. Pennsylvania. 


Feet 

14 

63 

49 

35 

70 

48 

13 


of tlie river meet, between abrupt bills 
300 or 400 feet in height, around the 
sides of which crop out, in horizontal layers, alternate coal, clay, 
sandstone, limestone and iron ore, thus: 

Limestone 1 \ to 2 feet, coal -§ ; interval of 12 feet . . 

Iron ore in two bands, 2 to 3£; interval of 60 feet 

Coal 3§; interval containing iron ore 45 feet . 

Coal 2-J-, slate l-J, limestone 3, shale interval 28. 

Coal 3^-, fire clay 1, hydraulic cement 4-J, fire clay, etc. 10 ; 
then a shale interval with 6 to 12 inches of ore, 50 . 

Coal 3-J at water level; interval with two thin coals 45 . 

Coal f, and a small interval of shale, 12 feet 

Conglomerate jSTo. XII.—The iron ore wrought so extensively 
at the Iron Works is near the top of the section, overlying the 
highest workable coal about 60 feet, and the water of the river 
about 250 feet. On the south side of the river it does not appear 
to be as important a bed, but when the hill at present mined is 
exhausted there stands another ready on the north. The ore bed 
roof and floor are slate; the upper bench of ore, from 1 \ to 2-J 
feet thick, is close grained, compact, dove-colored, comes out in 
square blocks, and oxidizes at the outcrop always to a shell. By 
analysis it yields from 51 to 52 per cent. The lower ore 
bench, separated from the upper by a thin seam of clay and 
running from -J- to 2 feet thick, is a light blue limestone-looking 
ore weathering white on the surface. The two benches thicken 
and thin alternately, keeping the whole thickness about the 
same. The furnaces run on coke and often need no limestone flux. 

Southeast of Johnstown at the forks of Paint creek, is a 
very attractive ore locality, where a stratum 8 feet thick has 2 
feet of good rock ore with close-set balls, while large nodules 
lie in the sandstone roof and good ore in the shale below. At 
the ILogs-back up Stony creek, 1 foot of ore (nodules in contact) 
overlies a hard ferruginous 14 foot limestone, 100 feet above the 
creek and not far from the horizon of the Johnstown ore. 

In the southern part of Somerset county on the waters 
of Castleman’s river, and the line of the new Connelsville rail¬ 
way connection between Baltimore and Pittsburg, are some still 
more promising localities. The region between Berlin and 
Salisbury, famous already for its monstrous coal beds, is des¬ 
tined to be as well known as Johnstown for its iron works. The 

44 


690 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


iron ores of tlie Lower Coal measures crop out on eacli side 
of the basin, and at Elk-lick falls is a triple ore bed, the lowest 
bench, 1 to 4 inches, nearly solid, dividing into squarish blocks; 
the other two, 2 feet above it, contain an equivalent of 4 inches 
of solid ore. The stratum is continuous down the creek. Ore 
lately opened within 3 miles (south) of the river was but about 
1 foot thick, but many places will be found where it is workable 
and with the ore of XI in the Alleghany and Xegro mountains, 
mixed with Cumberland fossil ore, brought by railroad, a large 
amount of capital will some day be concentrated in this old and 
beautiful settlement. 


In Maryland, Alleghany county, systematic researches 
were made in 1836 by the George’s creek Coal and Iron Com¬ 
pany and published in their annual Report and the same section 
in Ducatel’s State Geological Report for 1840, as follows, in de¬ 


scending order: 


Iron ore ..... 


1'6" 

inches 

Fire clay . 


10" 


Iron ore ..... 

• • • 

2" 

44 

Fire-clay, ore nodules 2' shale 6" coal 6" shale 2'6" 

=5'6" 


Iron ore . 

• • • 

2'6" 

« 

Shale and nodules 2' sandstone 9" shale 4" . 

3'0" 


Iron ore . 

• • • 

2" 

u 

Shale ...... 

• • • 

6" 


Iron ore ..... 

• • • 

4" 

it 

Shale with nodules of ore 

• • • 

3'0" 


Iron ore ..... 

• • • 

1'6" 

u 

Shale ...... 


2'6" 


Iron ore alternating with thin seams of shale 

8'10" 

(( 

Shale • . 


1'6" 


Iron ore . 

• • • 

3" 

u 

Shale . 


l'O" 


Iron ore . 

• 

6" 

(t 

Shale 5' coal 8" 

• • • 

5'8" 


Iron ore . 

• • • 

6" 

u 

Coal 1'6" shale 2'0" coal 1'6" shale 

with nodules 



of ore l'O" fire-clay l'O" coal 2'0" 

shale 6" fire- 



clay with nodules of ore l'O" . 


10'6" 


Iron ore. ..... 


l'O" 

<( 

Fire-clay 10" shale 1'6" 


2'4" 


Iron ore. ..... 


10" 

u 

Total iron in 55 feet . 


13'0" 

feet. 

were reports by- 

and P. I. 

Tyso 

n in 


reports by Silliman and Douglass in 1837: reports by H. T. 
Weld, J. Rickell, Capt. Erickson, F. Shepherd in 1858, which 















CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


691 


made the thickness of these beds in the aggre- 


W. Maryland. 


gate 16 or 17 feet, hut Mr. Ducatel says well 
that not more than 9 feet can be considered workable, and the 
George creek Company’s Report assumed more wisely 7 feet. 
The workings of a series of years would probably reduce it to 
4 or 5 feet. It is a safe rule to take one-third of an estimate 
of Coal-measure iron ore as the probable amount after the sur¬ 
face or outcrop ore has been stripped and gangways must be re¬ 
sorted to. 

The Virginian country to the south of this has not been ex¬ 
plored for iron, but undoubtedly the Lower Coal-measure ores 
which hold their own so well in going westward through Ohio 
and Kentucky, are not to be suspected without evidence of fading 
and dying away along their eastern outcrop. 


Passing now over to the north and west, the McKean 
and Elk county Survey, by the accomplished geologist, 
Augustus F. Dalson, in 1857, gives perhaps the latest and most 
reliable statement of the iron ores of northwestern Pennsyl¬ 
vania. 3 In a depth of Lower Coal of above 300 feet, we see 
Coal beds No. 13 and 14, of small size. 

Iron ore in balls No. 12, in a stratum six feet thick. 

Coal bed No. 11, double, six feet, good quality. 

Coal bed No. 10, single, three feet, superior, becoming cannel. 
Iron ore in balls overlaid by a thin seam of cannel coal. 

Coal bed No. 9, solid, 2j- feet, under the ore balls. 

Coal bed No. 8, “Bond Yein,” 4 feet between one foot cannel. 

Iron ore in balls overlying 

Coal bed No. 7, two to three feet thick. 

Coal beds Nos. 4, 5, 6, small beds accompanied by black-band 
and other iron ores. 

Coal bed No. 3, “Splint Yein,” the lowest and best, 4 feet thick. 
Carbonate of iron No. 2, one foot thick. 

Nodular iron ore No. 1, bed 5 feet thick, seventy feet below 
the lowest coal, cropping out only in the largest and deep¬ 
est valleys, and known in many other parts of the region. 
It must be remembered that a stratum containing ore balls is 
measured across between the upper and lower limits of the 

8 Second Annual Report to the Stockholders, Philadelphia, 508 Minor street. 



692 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


balls, and if the rock be bard the practical value of the deposit 
may be represented by one-fourth or one-fifth of this thickness ; 
if soft, by one-third or one-fourth of it according to the size and 
number of the nodules. Even the apparent thickness of a 
“ plate vein ” of carbonate of iron must be reduced 10, 20 or 
30 per cent according to its broken condition, before a judi¬ 
cious estimate of its practical mining value can be made. 

In McKean county northwestern Pennsylvania the fol¬ 
lowing sections of the lower coal measures made by Dalson, 
Owen and Needham in 1856 and 1857, will show the aspect of 
the ore of XI, Rogers’s Vespertine (formerly, now Auroral) red 
shale, as it emerges from under the Alleghany coal measures 
upon the northwestern outcrop side ; as well as the positions of 
several iron ore beds in the lower coal measures themselves. 


Coal 

Coal 

Coal 

Coal 

Coal 


Dalson. 


Owen. 


Feet. Feet. 




Iron ore nodules 
“Newell Coal” . 5 

Coal.? 

“ Whitman Coal ” 5 

White & pink S.S. 
Conglomerate 
Slate black . . .12 

Coal.2 

Slate black .... 13 



Needham. 
Coal .... 
Brown sandstone 
Coal .... 
White sandstone 
Slate black. . 

Coal .... 
Slate black. . 

Coal .... 
Slate black . . 

Coal .... 
Slate black. . 


2 

8 

5 b 

9 

12 

2 

13 

1 

10 

H 

1 


Iron black band 
Coal . . . 

Interval . . 

Iron nodules . 
Interval . . 

Coal ... 
Iron ore . . 
Interval . . 
Coal . . . 



I 

I 


YSO 




Iron black band . . 

Coal (Wilber) . . 

Slate . 

Coal . . . . • ? 

Hard white S.S. . 
Conglomeritic . . > 

Slaty . 

Coal . .... 4 


11 

41 


Iron blackband 
Sandstone . . 


And pea 


>40 


Conglomerate 
Slate . . . 

Iron nodules . 
Coal .... 


12 

6 


Iron 


Iron 



Iron ork (XI) 



White S.S. ... 20 
Pink & green shale 20 
Yellow pebbly S.S. 20 
Sandstone and coal 
streaks ... 8 

Thin S.S. / \ 

Heavy pebbly y 
Shale. 


Fire-clay . . 

Shales . . . 

White S.S. . . 
Pink S.S. . . 
Conglomerate . 
Iron . . . . 

Massive grey 
Sandstone . 


. 4 
. 11 
. 12 
. 14 
. 15 
. 5 



. . 5 Iron ore (XI) . 


5 Iron ore (XI) . . 5 


























CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


693 


Blackband ore, so called, overly- __ _ , 

,, w . n , . J N. W. Pennsylvania. 

mg the Wilber coals m Elk county 

Pennsylvania, gave to Dr. Owen the following analysis : Protox. 
iron 56.25 = 43.75 iron; carbonic acid 29.95; bituminous 
matter, loss, etc. 2.75, a percentage so small as to deprive the 
ore of its title to the name of black-band; silicates, lime, alu¬ 
mina, magnesia sulphur, 6.5 1 2 .75 .02 and water .08 of one 
per cent. The ore itself however is an uncommonly rich ore for 
the Coal measures, so far as its iron is concerned in this analysis. 
It is described however, as only one foot thick, with a few 
inches of very lean ore over it. Much has been said about the 
discovery of this black-band bed in northwestern Pennsylvania 
as though it were a matter of importance ; but the analysis 
above given shows that the amount of bituminous matter is 
merely enough to blacken the ore stratum and give it the 
outward appearance without the peculiar equalities of the Scotch 
black-band ; and this is true of many similar discoveries in other 
parts of the United States. 

Near the bottom of the Lower Coal measures, that is, 
usually, within the first 75 feet above the Conglomerate, lies the 
large coal bed B, and in the shales above it is the first constant and 
extensive deposit of iron ore worthy of mention. On Broadtop 
it is a quasi black-band in two or three separate layers between 
which lies a small coal bed. At St. Mary’s in Elk county where 
the coal B seems to be thin, the ore above it lies in oval blocks 
closely together in a thickness of from 2 to 4 feet, with ore balls 
scattered through the slates above, while 15 feet beneath it over 
the small coal A are also balls of grey carbonate. 4 The sections 
given a page or two back show these bands of ore on the waters 
of the Tunamaguont or Tuniangwant. On the Alleghany river 
the ore and coal are thus described in general terms. 5 


Shale, sometimes thickened with beds of sandstone; contains much nodular iron 
ore; at Alleghany furnace above Kittanning 9 layers in 12 feet; has yielded well 
at Serubgrass and Rockland furnaces; [at Johnstown etc.] 20 to 40 feet. 

Coal, B, good ; 3J feet at Leonards above Kittanning, over 3 feet fire-clay; 233 
feet above the Alleghany at Robinson’s salt works, nine miles below; opened fre¬ 
quently southeast of the Clarion; 5 feet thick west of the Alleghany, over which 
are three thin coals ; ranges through Irwin and Sandy (Venango) 12 feet below the 
limestone, 3k feet thick with a rider coal of 20 inches in the shale above ; 30 feet 


4 Rogers’s Final Report, vol. ii. p. 552. 

6 Lesley’s Manual of Coal. Philadelphia : Lippincott & Co., 1357, pp. 109, 110. 


694 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


below limestone at Lucinda furnace, Pinegrove (Clarion) ; at Mercer lies just under 
the limestone 3 feet thick ; also at the mouth of Beaver river, 4 feet thick. 

At Massillon in Ohio this bed of ore is two or three feet thick 
in solid plates nearly at the level of the river. In the west 
Kentucky coal region the ore is disseminated through shales in 
many small layers. 6 

Over the Coal B shales lies a massive sand rock, which on 
Broad Top in middle Pennsylvania is about 35 feet thick, and 
this rock seems to be as persistent in the west as the conglome¬ 
rate beneath it. The Pennsylvania geologists gave it the name 
of the Tionista sandstone, because of its northern development 
along those waters analogous to that of the higher Mahoning 
sandstone in the region of the Monongaliela in the southern. 
The fact was the identity of the rock was first enforced upon us 
by seeing it overspread that particular region. On the Neslian- 
nock river near the Ohio state line, this rock is about 60 feet 
above the conglomerate, and just under it is seen a bed of iron 
ore 6 inches thick with 2 feet of limestone and chert under it 
again. This limestone Mr. Rogers in his Final Report 7 chooses 
to call the Mahoning limestone, not from the small river of that 
name in southeast Pennsylvania, but from the river of that name 
which flows out from northwestern Ohio. On account of this 
confusion of places the term is unfortunate and will no doubt be 
dropped for some better one hereafter. Tv ^ miles below New¬ 
castle the six feet of shales beneath the Tionista sandstone con¬ 
tain iron ore, and the horizon of this ore is preserved in many 
other places. 

At a higher level than the Tionista sandstone is a large 
limestone formation coextensive with the uppermost water basin 
of the Ohio river, upon which rests the great ore-bearing shale 
formation of Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Venango, Mercer and 
Lawrence counties in Pennsylvania and Trumbull and Mahon¬ 
ing counties in Ohio. These formations are sufficiently described 
in general terms by the following abstract of the annual reports 
of the Pennsylvania geologists, previous to 1842. 8 

Buhrstone Ore Shale ; brown and black with nodules of carb. of iron and 
layers of sandstone, sometimes as a solid stratum 10 feet thick in the middle of the 
shales; thickness 25 feet. 

Buhrstone and Ore ; a bed of hard, grey, yellowish chert or flint store, cellular 

6 See Section of Owen, vol. iii. p. 12. 7 Page 567, top of the page. 

8 Lesley’s Coal Manual, page 112. 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


695 


and worm-eaten from the weathering out of iron 

and lime. The ore lies on the buhrstone and "W* Pennsylvania. 
under the shales; is a brown peroxide at the outcrop, and protocarbonate 
under cover. Where the chert abounds the ore is lean ; when the shales above 
are free from sandstone the ore is thick and good. [Both chert and ore are 
deposits subsequent to the deposition of the shale which contained them, but pre¬ 
vious to the denudation of the country; for the ore occurs sometimes as thick at 
the outcrop as where it has the full deposit of shale above it. The leaching process 
which carried off the iron and silex disseminated through the shales down upon the 
face of the calcareous mud must have found the latter an unbroken impervious 
plane, and not, as now, rent in fissures through which the waters find their way with 
such ease that gangways in the ore are always dry. This is another datum we have 
for calculating the date of the Denudation. It is this leaching process which has 
converted the carbonate into the oxide and thus enhanced the theoretical percent¬ 
age of iron in the ore from 46 to 66 per cent. An analysis of a specimen from Arm¬ 
strong county is given in the 4th annual report to this effect:—Iron 32.95, carbon¬ 
ate of iron 68.32, carbonate of lime 16.64, insoluble (mud and sand) 10.58, w r ater 
4, carb. mang. 1.35, traces of magn. and mang. Another specimen gave:—Iron 
25.34, carbonate of iron 54.33, insoluble 40.90, water 4, lime, magn., alum, traces. 
Another from Warne’s, on Bennett’s Branch, Clearfield county, gave :—Iron 34.72, 
carbonate of iron 55.10, peroxide of iron 9.50, carbonate of lime 5.80, carbonate 
magnesia 5.40, insoluble (sand and mud) 21, water 3. There remain in the shales 
above the ore plate usually a vast number of nodules of carbonate of iron, more or 
less mixed with silex and lime, and these are often in sufficient proximity to admit 
of mining with the ore. In places it is beautifully variegated with the disks of en- 
crinites crystallized white upon a blue and purple ground, and sometimes the iron 
itself is crystalloid. Its surfaces are frequently mammillary. 

The ore bed proper varies from an inch to 5 feet, rapidly changing its form, com¬ 
position and thickness at dvery step. It yields best wherever there is a bowl in the 
limestone. In the openings two miles south of Shippensville in Clarion county, it 
has reached 9 feet, throughout which the silex is disseminated. [Its best average 
may be stated at less than 18, and a common average over large areas at 10 inches.] 

Fossiliferous Limestone, c, compact, light, blue, disposed to weather into thin 
layers, but very hard, sometimes slaty, always interrupted vertically by silicious 
beds, burns grey, abounds in encrinal disks of crystallized carbonate of lime, innu¬ 
merable small shells ( terebratulce ) with occasional sharks’ teeth. It varies from 10 
to 20 feet, and has a very wide known range. 

It rises from beneath the Alleghany river about 4 miles above the mouth of the 
Kiskiminetas (where it is 100 feet under water), and slowly ascends the river and 
the hill-sides together, outcropping on all the tributary valleys and finally throwing 
its waving outcrop across the highland in ranges of low summits covered with chest¬ 
nut and oak and distinguishable from a great distance in a landscape filled with hem¬ 
locks and pines. These knobs cross through Pinegrove, Elk creek, and Irvine town¬ 
ships in Venango. At Kittanning it is 100 feet above the river ; and several hun¬ 
dred at the mouth of Bear creek ; it occurs on Red bank east of N. Bethlehem, and 
ascends both sides of Clarion [and has been traced through Elk county into McKean 
along the centre of the 4th basin. It is recognizable as far east at least as Karthaus 
and Clearfield; and southeast throughout Indiana, Westmoreland, Cambria and So¬ 
merset into Virginia. It is not everywhere accompanied by the buhrstone, but 
almost always has over it traces of the ore more or less remarkable. Throughout 


GOG 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


the south find east it scarcely can be said to exceed 4 feet, and seldom shows any 
peroxide except at the crop.] West of Kittanning on Buffalo creek it is 15 feet 
thick ; it comes within 10 miles of Franklin, and shows itself on Bear and Sugar 
creeks ; emerging on Slippery rock and Beaver river it is 20 feet thick, etc. 

The buhrstone of the Clarion is compact, grey outside, 
light blue within, and covers the surface of the country with 
fragments from 3 to 12 inches in diameter. The limestone can¬ 
not always be traced easily because when the beds are thin they 
readily decompose, and has formed no visible terrace along the 
hill sides. 9 The ore varies much, being sometimes a solid, hard, 
blue fossiliferous stratum, like limestone, and at other times a 
layer of crusts or shells formed concentrically about a nucleus, 
the nodules being often as much as 7 inches in diameter, the 
nucleus yellow, surrounded by a hard black crust a quarter of 
an inch thick. The chief part of the ore consists of these crusts, 
like fragments of larger masses, and very frangible. When 
broken there often flows out a dark unctuous fluid. The inside 
lining is a smooth, glossy black, or covered with minute yellow, 
purple and violet-colored crystals, commonest next the chert. 
In the upper part of the ore layer the yellow clay abounds. 
Between the ore and the limestone lies the chert, passing some¬ 
times into the one and sometimes into the other.’ The ore upon 
the Coneconessing attains a thickness of 5 feet, and lies in the 
hollows of the limestone’s upper surface, without chert. The 
limestone itself is fissured widely and deeply; but as the ore 
bridges these fissures and is thickest in the hollows of the lime¬ 
stone, it is reasonable to conclude that it was deposited at a com¬ 
paratively early date, perhaps immediately before the consolida¬ 
tion of the shales at the bottom of which it lies, and before the 
elevation of the coal measures into the air gave the drainage 
waters opportunity to widen the natural cleavage joints of the 
subjacent limestone to the size of the present fissures. Listen¬ 
ing at the outcrop of the ore, one can hear the waters which 
drain through the shales above the ore and through the ore 
itself, falling in tiny cataracts down through the unseen fissures 
ten or twenty feet. If these were the waters which produced 
the ore, why has the ore bed itself not been all swept away long 
before this ? It is likely then that the ore was deposited with 
the shales and immediately sought their lowest level against the 
upper surface of the previously-deposited limestone. 

9 F. R. p. 568. 1 Final Report, p. 569. 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


697 


Beneath the ferriferous limestone in Pennsylvania, and 

beneath the place where it should be in western Kentucky 2 is 
an under layer of ore. In Clarion county Pennsylvania, the 
author found in 1811 when he traced this bed, 3 4 * that this lower 
ore had been struck in Lowrie’s well at Strattonville, six feet 
beneath the limestone. On the Alleghany river at Brady’s bend 
and further west the same ore is seen in the same place.—This 
ore must not be confounded with local deposits in shale, still 
lower in the system; for under the limestone, with an interval 
of 15 or 20 feet (e. g. at Scull’s run) comes the Clarion coal, 
under which are numerous beds of ore in about 10 feet of brown 
shale. At least four beds of this ore are named, the upper¬ 
most—1. Poll ore, in masses 2 to 3 feet long and 8 to 12 inches 
thick, coarse; 2. Pig ore, in cylindrical nodules from 6 to 21 
inches long; 3, small nodular ore; 1, Flag ore, in flags from 6 
to 20 inches broad, scaling off in conchoidal crusts."—Kear 
Curlsville the limestone 1 feet thick rests on sandy shales 15 or 
20 feet thick at the bottom of which are 8 to 11 inches of good 
fusible nodular ore in a single bed, opened on the west side of 
the river. 6 —In the Sugar Creek section, where the upper ore is 
12 feet above the top of the limestone, this lower ore (1 to 10 
inches thick) immediately underlies it. 6 It forms the main 
dependence of the Great Western furnaces, 2 miles up Sugar 
creek, and is called their “ summit vein.” It averages from 2 
to 2-J feet, but is 1 feet thick in Phillips’ hill. It yields 30 per 
cent of metal. Over it is a stratum of fire-clay making good 
fire-brick and it is used in preference to the fire-clay under the 
Kittanning coal bed. Sometimes the ore sinks below the lime¬ 
stone some feet, and when the interval is filled with sandy shales 
then the buhrstone appears in the ore, but when it lies close up 
to the limestone it is calcareous and slialy. Sometimes it is 
highly bituminous and sulphurous. Its average yield is 35 to 
37 per cent metal. 7 By this we see that the limestone has 
nothing to do with the ore as a flooring. Two miles south of 
Armstrong’s mills in the Red bank creek country this ore, of fine 
quality and some inches thick, underlies a black slate 2 feet 


3 Owen, Report, vol. iii. p. 11. 8 Final Report, vol. ii. p. 570. 

4 Final Report, p. 571; there is some error in the original text. 

6 Final Report, p. 572. 

« Final Report, page 577. 7 Final Report, p. 578, vol. ii. 


cos 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


thick. One mile below Troy the ore is in the lower part of 30 
feet of shales under the limestone (4 feet) over which is the 
oolitic (bulirstone ore) in shales. At Reynolds’ and Shank’s 
furnace, on Red bank, the grey limestone 6 feet thick has the 
ore over it from 0 to 3 feet thick, and under it 9 inches of 
equally good and more regular ore, without chert. 

The buhrstone ore at the Deal bank, 2 miles south of Sliip- 
pensville has been extensively wrought and is from 4 to 6 feet 
thick, exceedingly variable. The chert comes out in pieces 
from 4 to 10 inches square and is abundant in the upper part of 
the ore bed. The ore bed is separated f rom the limestone l>y 
several feet of greenish slaty sandstone .—At Curlsville, on 
Licking creek, half way between Clarion and the mouth of Red 
bank, the buhr is finely developed in the lowland. Here the 
limestone is but 4 feet thick. In contrast to its thickness here, 
it is 15 feet thick in the country west of the Alleghany river 
between Franklin and Warren; but there it has neither buhr¬ 
stone nor ore. Through the northern part of Butler county it 
carries chert, but seldom ore. Within four miles of Centreville 
the ore comes in from 6 to 20 inches thick, and is sometimes 
wholly replaced by a foot of buhrstone, resting immediately 
upon the limestone. At Buchanan’s, 2 miles from the village, 
both together are but 8 inches thick and a bed of clay separates 
them from the limestone. The limestone seen 7 or 8 miles south 
of Mercer is on the outcrop line which runs straight past the mouth 
of the Little Neshamock on to Newcastle. The country to the 
south has plenty of coal and limestone but little of the ore, until 
we descend the Coneconessing and Mahoning rivers to near their 
junction where the ore is extensively mined between the two 
streams, and is from 2 to 5 feet thick. 

In the Sugar creek section 8 over the ferriferous limestone 
(15 feet thick) lie 12 feet of sandy shales and over them a “slab 
vein ” of silicious ore 20 inches thick, over which lie 40 feet 
more of clay sandstone with nodules. 

On Crooked creek the limestone 6 feet thick is full of bivalves 
but shows no ore. At Kittanning it is 15 to 25 feet thick and 
70 feet above the bridge and shows some mottled ore over it. 
At Alleghany furnace the limestone, a grey blue rock with a 
few fossils, supports from 5 inches to 4 feet of ore; occasionally 


8 Final Report, p. 577, vol. ii. 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


699 


6 to 8 inches of yellowish chert is __ ___ _ 
interposed, occurring in patches 8 or * ennsy vama. 

10 yards square. The lowest limestone layer (4 to 10 inches 
thick) is enough of an ore to be mixed to advantage, and six or 
more nodular beds run through the shales below. At Buffalo 
creek furnace the ore over the (15-feet blue solid) limestone 
has very little chert. Along the Kishiminetas about Warren 
the limestone is 7 feet thick but has no ore over it. 

The Limestone next higher in the series and connected 
with the Freeport coals, is in itself at some places a very ferru¬ 
ginous stratum. At Punxatawny on the borders of Indiana 
county it is half carbonate of lime, half carbonate of iron, 3-J feet 
thick. Further down the Mahoning creek it has shales above it 
from which fall masses of honeycomb ore. Sometimes nearly 
pure layers of carbonate of iron an inch or two thick accompany 
the limestone. At Ewing’s mill further down, a very pure bed 
of block ore 18 inches thick in layers of 4 or 5 inches with con¬ 
cretions of silica, wdiile masses of veins of pure carbonate of lime 
seem to subdivide the bed, has been referred to the same but 
may represent the lower ore.—Nearer the Alleghany river at 
Alleghany furnace a bed of ore one foot thick forms the floor of 
the Lower Freeport limestone. Two or three miles below 
Kittanning the ore under this fine grain, light blue or dove- 
colored limestone (10 feet thick) is 6 to 12 inches thick.—At 
Winfield furnace west of the Alleghany, the ores relied on are 
from the brown calcareous ore bed sometimes 4 feet thick in the 
fire-clay under the Upper Freeport coal. At Leecliburg 3 inches 
of iron ore overlies the Freeport limestone (1 foot). Here the 
Freeport sandstone (a fine quartz conglomerate) is seen at the 
water’s edge to contain a nearly solid stratum of ore balls 
10 inches thick. 

On the Ohio river below the mouth of the Beaver river, 
below Philipsburg village, the ferriferous limestone is just below 
water level, covered with slaty sandstone and brown shale over 
which comes the Kittanning coal, over which are ferriferous 
shales. No buhrstone ore is known in this region. At Two- 
mile run the limestone is 20 feet thick and rises westward 
through all that country without the ore. 

In northeastern Ohio three furnaces were running in 1838, 
one at the mouth of Musquito creek, one near the mouth 



700 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


of Mill creek, and one on Yellow creek, making castings 
cliicfly and getting coal measure ores with some diffi¬ 
culty. The Akron and Middleburg furnaces were supplied 
from southern mines, having ceased to rely upon the precarious 
and expensive supplies from beds in the vicinity. The deposits 
of boec ores are too limited and uncertain to be made the 
basis of iron manufacture. 9 The large introduction of Lake 
Superior and Lake Champlain ores of late years, shows not only 
their adaptation to make superior iron by mixing, but also the 
difficulties attending a constant supply of first class coal measure 
carbonate and their outcrop hematite ores. The black-band 
around Youngstown furnishes its quota to the usual mixture, 
but cannot be relied upon to stock the furnaces even if it 
were desirable to use it alone. An enormous quantity of 
iron ore in carbonate nodules lies forever bedded in the shales 
above and below the conglomerate base of the coal measures, too 
scattered and uncertain to be mined. The most important beds 
known in 1838 were that already mentioned, and those in the 
black shales of Mill creek below Youngstown furnace, 4 to 8 
inches thick ; on Dry creek 3 miles east; and on Yellow creek. 
But where the shales are cut down by ravines, the sections ex¬ 
pose but two or three feet of ore in a hundred, 1 and so dis¬ 
tributed in two and three-inch layers as to be inaccessible. Poland 
furnace was supplied from pieces gathered in the bed of Yellow 
creek. The present large and prosperous stacks on the Mahon¬ 
ing use one-half Lake Superior or lake Champlain ore and the 
rest mixed nodular and black-band. There has been lately 
found near Massillon a bed of carbonate apparently one or two 
feet thick just under the river bottom which if followed up and 
mixed with lake ore may keep the Tuscarawas stacks going for 
many years. 

On the Mahoning river in Ohio, the Mahoning furnace (H 45*7) uses raw bitu¬ 
minous coal to smelt a mixed burden of g blue plate carbonate ore from a bed 6 to 
10 inches thick lying 15 feet above the Mount Nebo 1 coal vein in the hills of the 
neighborhood i Lake Superior ore and —{ rolling mill cinder. The Lake Superior 
ore alone was found not so good for mill iron. Hence all the ore of one kind is 
roasted separately and the mixing is done at the foot of the water-hoist. The 
Mount Nebo coal bed which is the same as the Briar hill, and Mathersfield coal bed, 
lies about 50 feet above water level at Mount Nebo but is supposed to be beneath 
water level at Lowell (Mahoning furnace). Two other small coal beds exist in the 


9 Whittlesea in Mather, 1838, p. 67. 


1 Whittlesea, p. 66. 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 701 

hillsides above the furnace ; and on the hilltops, say 200 feet up, JJ. Ohio, 

lies the great fossiliferous white limestone 20 feet thick, full of 
large encrinal joints and shells.—Falcon and Phoenix furnaces use the same mixed 
ores, only that \ black-band ore is added, from a layer 4 to 8 inches thick immediately 
underlying the Ward bank coal, seven miles southwest of Briarhill.—Eagle or Philpot 
furnace uses black-band mixed with a Canadian primary ore from Byetown, a dirty ore 
containing masses of plumbago as big as one’s fist and streams of gneissic quartz. 
Cakes ol copper are left in the hearth on blowing out. The rolling-mill metal made is 
good.—Briarhill furnace mixes £ Ward’s black-band, ^ mill cinder, J Canada ore and 
i rock or kidney carbonate from the hill-sides. The coal of all these furnaces, used 
raw, comes from the cannel coal bed, which strangely enough makes a worthless 
cold-short iron with the same Coneconessing brown hematite with which charcoal 
makes best mill-metal.—Meander furnace was built in 1858 in the immediate 
neighborhood of W T ard’s black-band ore, but mixes it ^ with \ Lake Superior ore, 
and native kidney or plate silicious and argillaceous blue carbonate. The coal 
used is from a higher bed than the Mount Nebo.—The abandoned Musquito creek 
furnace used bog ore.—Volcano at Massillon gets its shell and kidney ore from 25 
miles south by canal, and mixes Lake Superior. 2 

In Tuscarawas county eastern Ohio, the Zoar and Fair- 
field furnaces were the only ones built in 1837 when Mr. Briggs 
reported to Prof. Mather principal, geologist of that state survey. 
Their ores however helped to supply the Granville furnace in 
Licking county to the southwest and the Massillon and Akron 
furnaces to the north. These ores overlaid the bulirstone horizon 
so far as it was known in this intermediate part of its range, 
and consisted of nodules in slate, compact and blue within, yel¬ 
low and shelly outside and falling to pieces in concentric shells 
when exposed to air or roasted in the heap ; hence the local 
term “ shell ore,” still in use. The lower beds range extensively 
through townships 9 and 10, B. 2 and 10, B. 1. The upper beds 
mined and used at Fairfield, Tp. 9, B. 1, shows a face of work¬ 
ing from 3 to 12 feet and in one case 15 feet of impure ore, ox¬ 
ide of iron and dark shale, yielding 15 to 20 per cent of iron 
and easily smelted. A mile or two south of Dover a stratum 
three or four feet thick was struck. An excellent ore a foot 
thick appears in the bank of the Tuscarawas two or three miles 
above Bew Philadelphia. Large quantities of iron ore of good 
quality appear upon the outcrop slopes in many places, but this 
mineral wealth must still wait for the perfect organization of the 
coke or raw-coal process of smelting iron in Ohio. 

Big ore bed kidney ore Jackson county Ohio, near Jackson furnace, yielded iron 
48.75, oxygen 20.89, water 12.79, earths 16.15, etc. containing probably a little sul- 
phuret of zinc. Ore bed 6 feet thick, reddish brown, concentric nodules, hollow or 

2 Bulletin Amer. Iron Asso. 1855. 


702 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


filled with clay, fracture fine uneven earthy dull. Place 70 to 80 feet above the 
Crookham seam, which is 70 or 80 feet above the conglomerate base of the coal 
measures The thin Henry seam and above it two block ore beds occur in the lat¬ 
ter interval. 3 ' 

The Ohio Buhrstone ore is placed by Foster in his section from Columbus through 
Zanesville in Mather’s Report of 1838, about 200 feet above the Brownsville or 
lowest coal bed on that western outcrop of the measures, in Muskingum, Licking 
and Franklin counties of Ohio, but in the text its place is said to be 100 feet above 
the conglomerate. Buhrstone ore, Jackson county Ohio, near Radcliff s, yielded 
iron 58.626, oxygen 24.802, water 13.25, earth 1.508, etc. Ore compact, porous, 
brown, specific gravity 3.09. 

The coal measure ores of Muskingum county Ohio, 

described by Foster in Mather’s Report of 1838, 4 and divided 
into argillaceous, calcareous and silicious, with brown oxide at 
the outcrop, occur usually as nodules in shale, and contain often 
small quantities of lead, zinc, 5 manganese, crystallized carbonate 
of lime, sulphate of barytes and impressions, of ferns; when ex¬ 
posed to the air, lose carbonic acid, absorb oxygen and peel 
off in concentric layers. The best beds lie in the lower coal 
measures between the conglomerate and the buhrstone, a hun¬ 
dred feet above it. At Dillon’s furnace (centre of Falls town¬ 
ship) three of the four beds were worked, two of which are 
seen at Zanesville near the water’s edge, and the section at the 


furnace reads thus, descending the liill-sides: 

Nodular iron ore (found also at Zanesville) . . 4.0 ft. 

Sandst. 10, limest. 4, coal 1, slaty sandst. and clay 80 -=95.0 “ 
Iron ore (Zanesville also) . . . . . 1.0 “ 

Hornstone 0.5, cannel coal 2.5, sandstone 40 . . 43.0 a 

Iron ore rich argillaceous extensively used . . 2.0 “ 

Sandstone and shale.30.0 “ 

Iron ore calcareous, used as flux .... 1.0 “ 

Sandstone ........ 30.5 “ 

Bed of Licking creek ; whole height . . . 206.5 “ 


The same beds were used for Granville and Mary Ann fur¬ 
naces in Licking county Ohio, and their outcrops range north- 
northeast through the western townships of Muskingum, in¬ 
dented by all the valleys and ravines, because of the exceeding 
gentleness of the dip eastward into the great body of the coal 
field under which, as the lowest of the coal measures, they sink 

3 Mather 1838, p. 39. 4 Page 88. 

8 Almost every nodule in the bed at Zanesville, 20 feet above the level of the Musk¬ 
ingum river contains calc spar and zinc. 




CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


703 


and pass beneath Wheeling and Pittsburg to reap 

pear in western Virginia and western Pennsylvania, E ‘ ° hl °’ 

as already described. 

The sulphurous pyrites of iron is confined chiefly to the coal 
beds and the shales or slates between, in which it appears (as in 
the canal at Zanesville) in great cannon balls, and also dissemi¬ 
nated in fine yellow crystals through the limestones. 

The buhrstone which in northwest Pennsylvania is deposited 
together with the finest iron ore of that region at the base of 
ferruginous shales and upon the great fossiliferous limestone of 
the lower coal measures, is here in southern Ohio a separate de¬ 
posit ; see the following section got by Foster in Hopewell town¬ 
ship Licking county Ohio: 

Buhrstone, grey or yellowish-white, or greenish, 4.0 feet. 

Shale 10 ; Hornstone 1.4 ; Grey Cherty Lime¬ 
stone 5; Shale dark 30; light blue 10; coal 
0-8 ; slate sandstone 8 ; yellow shale 15; =80.0 

Iron ore, of good quality ;.0.8 feet. 

Shale dark ;.10.0 

Iron ore, of good quality, from one to . . 4.0 feet. 

Limestone brown 5; blue 6; compact sand¬ 
stone 40;.51.0 

Whole section, .... 157.0 

The Buhrstone passes into hornstone and becomes translucent; 
contains numerous cavities like amygdaloidal trap, some of 
which are moulds of infusoria; contains in its fractures drusy 
quartz, six-sided and smoky crystals; masses of chalcedony crystals 
in the cavities ; rhombic pearly calcspar prisms and heavy spar 
or sulphate of barytes; terebratulse, encrini, spirifer, productus, 
antliophylla and infusoria ; and a trilobite was found in the un¬ 
derlying limestone on Flint ridge. Its range is near the Musk¬ 
ingum and Licking county line and marks of course the range 
of the iron ores beneath it. 6 It will be observed also that the 
buhrstone repeats itself as hornstone as if the deposit was due to 
intermittent hot springs. 

The following condensed description of this part of the Ohio 
coal formation was made for the author’s Manual of Coal, page 
109 :— 

• Foster, in Mather, 1830, p. 92. See also Hildreth’s description of the Buhrstone in 
the First Annual Report of the Ohio survey. 


704 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


7. Coal, good 2 feet thick. Upper part of Lower Coal measures. 

6. Shale , bituminous ; containing nodular ore. Upper part slaty, smooth 
sandstone, in the interval, . . . . . . . . .15 feet. 

5. Coal, slaty, 2 feet. Poor, light, cakes readily; near Zanesville 3 feet, 
eight miles above McConnelsville 20 inches. This is the locality of 

all the measurements from the fourth fossiliferous limestone to the calcare¬ 
ous silicious rock, ........... 

4. Shale, slaty clay, light ash color; fire-clay above, . . . . 15 “ 

3. Sandstone , coarse, loose, brown, crumbling, giving the sand beds to 
the Raccoon waters; seen well over the Buhrstone at Wild Cat’s Den, sec¬ 
tion 26, Elk township ; more slaty on Muskingum ; silicious on Hocking, 20 “ 

2. Iron Ore. Thin, brown, oxide, porous, mammillary cavities, . . ^ foot. 

1. Buhrstone 9 feet. “Calcareo-silicious deposit;” of uniform texture ; pure 
quai’tz; free from lime and oxide of iron ; light grey ; cellular; sound metallic; in¬ 
tensely hard; stratified and regularly cleft; the bed plane most cellular and used 
as the face of the millstone; more or less marine shells; interpolated layers of lime¬ 
stone 2 or more feet thick above and below the buhr, which in such cases is but 2 to 
4 feet thick; greatest thickness in any one bed 9 feet. The best Paris blue buhr¬ 
stone, six and a half feet in diameter, sold in Cuvier’s day for $240. The Ohio 
buhr was first wrought by Abram Neisby in 1807, and during the embargo super¬ 
seded the French. From 1814 to 1820, 4^ feet stones sold for $370 a pair, 7 feet 
for $500 ; in 1834 four feet stones for $150. The rock is a mine of wealth to Rich¬ 
land, Elk, and Clinton townships, and Hopewell township Muskingum. It ranges 
from the Ohio river to Stark county and on northeastward, in a band from 12 to 20 
miles wide with an easterly dip. At Toppin’s mill, Margaret county, 6 feet exposed, 
layers of 6 inches, grey, calcareous, splits smooth into window sills, etc.—Beds the 
streams in Lee township, roof loose sandstone, floor dark shale. Further west a 
bed of coal occurs a few feet under it; still further west it rests on coal .—At Judge 
Warner’s, Lee township, in road, 8 feet thick, strata 8-10 inches, upper layers calca¬ 
reous, lower pure quartz and hornstone; black, green, blue, horn color ; fracture 
conchoidal; lowest layer nearly black; top layers cellular ; this feature seems con¬ 
fined to its western outcrop. —Seldom seen large until Elk township 24 miles south¬ 
west of Athens, where are many quarries.—Crops out on the highest hills of Rich¬ 
land township (Jackson) 8 miles w r est of McArthurstown. At Redfearn’s east branch 
mid fork of Salt, a conglomerate of water-worn quartz pebbles cemented with 
sand and iron, covers the hills to the base with its fragments ;—traced north to 
Raccoon creek heads and Honey fork of Queer (Hocking);—southward rich buhr 
quarries in a belt 12-14 miles wide, 6-8 broad.—Middle of Wilkes township (Gallia) 
crops under the bridge 4 miles west of Wilkesville ; appears no more to the east¬ 
ward ; cut in salt wells on Leading and Chickamoga creeks Southwest it crosses 
west end of Gallia county, head of Symmes’ creek, to Ohio river.—Northeast from 
Jackson county crops out east side of Hocking county and York township Athens 
county 8-9 feet thick, roof coarse sandstone. East of Ilockhocking river, few frag¬ 
ments of it have survived weathering ; northeast corner of Green township and in 
Monday creek township seen in place ; abundant in Perry county ; continuous on 
Rush creek Pike township Lexington, a pure quartz, used by the Indians for arrow 
heads ; bears northeast into the corners of Licking and Muskingum counties, forming 
the “ Flint Ridge ” summits ; in both Hopewell townships it covers the surface with 
fragments; used by Indians for knives and spears; innumerable pits from Jackson 
to Muskingum.—In Muskingum color is lighter; no open fissures, but full of tortu- 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


705 


ous vermiform passages, one sixteenth of an inch in diameter, the Ohio, 
matrices of a fusiform univalve, and encrinal joints, with some tere- 
bratulse, spiriferi, producti, etc. 8-9 feet thick.—From Hopewell to mouth of Licking 
dips 10 feet to the mile.—South along the Moxahala creek lies high on the hills, yel¬ 
low, soft, full of terebratulae; in York township (Morgan) 8-9 feet thick; traced 
down Island and. Oil Runs to Muskingum river, and goes under 2 miles above 
McConnelsville.—At McConnelsville bored through 110 feet below water, the lower 
or main salt rock lying 650 feet below it , with little variation, for 10 to 12 tniles 
beloiv .—At Campbell’s mills 10 feet, floor bituminous shale ; some of it pure con- 
choidal limestone. 

Iii Perry, Athens and Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence and 
Scioto counties of Southern Ohio the ore beds on which 
their numerous furnaces depend for stock are principally be¬ 
tween the buhrstone and the conglomerate, but are of very dif¬ 
ferent qualities, some being soft and others hard, some calcare¬ 
ous and others silicious. That which lies upon a limestone re¬ 
sembles the ore of northwest Pennsylvania in the same position. 
Hildreth described it in one place near Hazeltine’s mills in the 
southeast corner of Perry county as filling several feet of a thick 
oclireous deposit of slaty clay upon buff limestone, as a rich ar¬ 
gillaceous heavy ore coming out in tabular masses one foot thick. 
Brigg describes other such localities south of this, 7 in one of which 
(section 7 Green township Hocking county) a second bed of ore 
10 inches thick overlies a white sandrock over the shales above 
the limestone ore. Crook’s, Green’s and Wright’s banks are all 
in Hocking county, the last in Star township sec. 26, T. 12, P. 
16, a 3J- feet thick mixture of ochre and solid ore. In Athens 
county the most continuous deposit is a heavy, compact, 
bluish band a few feet below the Helsonville coal and 6 to 10 
inches thick, containing impressions of ferns, at Whittemore’s 
on Snow Fork Monday creek, and up the creek. It runs along 
the Raccoon creek waters, coming out in large plates containing 
fossil plants. 8 

In his report to the Central Ohio Coal and Iron Company in 
1856, Dr. Hayes speaks of the ores of Perry county as “ not the 
clay iron stones of the bituminous coal measures such as are 
found in England, but in percentage of iron they closely ap¬ 
proach the magnetic oxides of the primary rocks, but can be 
more easily smelted; they generally will contain, mixed with 
flux, the proportion of iron which reduces with the greatest 

7 Mather, 1838, p. 142. 8 Briggs in Mather, 1838, p. 144. 

45 


706 


rART II.-DIVISION ir. 


economy to grey iron ; they all contain traces of manganese 
oxide, but in no case is enough present to give character to the 
iron.” To avoid misunderstanding these expressions, it is only 
necessary to remark that the specimens sent to Dr. Ilayes were 
of course from the peroxidizcd outcrop ; for the beds are the 
clay iron stone beds of the English bituminous coal measures 
and no other; and in no common sense, except as subjects of 
analysis, do they resemble geologically the magnetic oxides of 
the primary rocks. The opinion of Dr. Hayes is therefore all 
the more valuable, as being a purely analytical and chemical 
one, in its bearing upon the probable sedimentary, perhaps car¬ 
bonated sedimentary origin of the primary magnetic ores ; while 
it so far forth sustains the chemical cycle of metamorphosis so 
frequently alluded to in the preceding pages. 

These Perry and Hocking county Ohio ores are situated in 
Salt lick and Monday creek townships, but they are common to 
the belt of rocks crossing these townships and the Ohio river. 
The Straitsville coal bed 6 feet thick, dipping southeastward 
30 feet in the mile, outcrops on each side of the proposed Straits¬ 
ville Branch railroad to within 5 miles of the Scioto and Hock¬ 
ing valley railroad. A few inches under it is a bed of ore 
reported by Mather to be from 10 to 16 inches thick. Another, 
not proved, lies 50 feet above. The limestone ore, from 8 to 16 
inches thick, lies far below. Dr. Hayes’s specimens are not so 
named as to determine certainly to which of these beds they 
belong, but they are all evidently from the outcrops: 

28.60 

27.50 

14.00 

10.80 

8.80 

10.00 
r- 

No. 5 is marked “ ore above cannel coal at tunnel,” and de¬ 
scribed as coming out in laminated masses, nearly white 
externally, yellow and brown within, soft, fragile, a mere ferru¬ 
ginous slate decomposed. Many of the slates and shales of the 
coal measures are heavily charged with carbonate of iron, ap¬ 
parently in the condition of uniform distribution, and sometimes 
concreted into nodules; but the nodular form seems to have 
been assumed only in those comparatively loose and fluid muds 


1 Ball 

64.20 


.40 


6.60 

2 Kidney 

| 61.20 

6 

a 

1.20 

a 

3 

9.80 

3 Hydrate 

? 76.70 

4h 

O 

<D 

1.20 

P 

*2 

Is 

7.80 

4 Hydrate 

5 83.20 

o 

cd 

a 

o 

.40 

U 

>> 

5.40 

5 Slaty 

£ 40.40 

•a 

u 

3 

.80 

c3 

49.80 

6 Black 

84.20 

o 

1.40 

4.20 


'S 

*o 

c3 

o 

*2 

o 

•O 

1 -* 

oi 

o 

"3 

C 

c$ 

u 

-4-3 

ci 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


707 


S. Ohio. 


which allowed free movement to the iron. The sixth 
specimen is described as derived from a grey carbo¬ 
nate of iron ; for in its altered state it presents yellow and brown 
oxides with grey carbonate. After roasting, 100 parts contain 
93 peroxide = 65 pig iron. It is free from sulphur. 


In Kentucky the best ores hitherto collected, says Owen in 
his second volume (1857), page 68, have been found in the 
Lower Coal measures; there is however some excellent black- 
hand ore high up in the Upper measures of Muhlenburg county, 
but so far as we have seen only six inches thick ; and there ap¬ 
pears to he a considerable quantity of iron stones in the Upper 
Coal measures in the shaly beds lying some distance under the 
Bonharbour Coal. 9 Of these blackband ores Mr. Lyon in his 
u Observations on Hopkins, Crittenden, Livingston, Caldwell, 
Christian and Henderson counties,” 1 says that all the localities 
on Cane run, Stuart’s, Richland and Flat creeks are doubtless 
the outcrop of the same bed. “ The differences to be found in 
sections taken of this bed at a distance of three or four miles 
asunder are not greater than of those at the same outcrop within 
a few feet of each other.” He gives the following section, made 
on the head waters of Stuart’s creek, as typical of the constitu¬ 
tion of the bed: 

Black bituminous shale in inches 6. 1.3. 3. 2. 6. 

Black-band ore “ .1.1. 1.1. 2.. 

Bluish (fire) clay under all .12 4- 

by which it appears that the aggregate of shale layers amounts 
to 21 and of ore layers to 6 inches. Mr. Lyon thinks that the 
average of many localities may be set down at 8 inches. Under 
the fire-clay are evidences of a bed of limestone. 

The eastern coal field is vastly rich in iron stones, especially towards its base, in 
Greenup and Carter counties. Fifty-eight (68) ores have been analyzed from 
Greenup county, and six from Carter; also thirteen different specimens of pig iron, 
produced from these ores, and fifteen furnace slags. These ores are all interstrati- 
fied as beds conformable to the associated coal measures. Their relative position 
is well illustrated by local sections, obtained at the ore banks of the Sandy, Mt. 
Savage, Star, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania and Amanda Furnaces, which will be found 
in the second chapter, under the head of Greenup county (See Diagram No. 3.) 

o He also speaks of a specimen sent from somewhere near Irwin, Estelle county, 
which was found to contain 21.13 per cent copper. 

1 Owen, Vol. ii. p. 339. 




708 


PART n.—DIVISION II. 


The beds vary from three inches to four or five feet. They belong, mineralogically, 
to the family of limonites, or hydrated oxides, and protocarbonates of iron, yielding 
from twenty-seven to sixty per cent of metallic iron. They lie usually on or be¬ 
tween shaly beds, sometimes resting on or overlaid by limestone. These associated 
limestones are often highly ferruginous, yielding from seven as high as twenty-five 
per cent of metallic iron, therefore well adapted for fluxes for the iron ores, when 
free from pyrites or other injurious principles, since they not only supply the lime 
necessary to produce, with the earthy ingredients, the proper cinder or furnace 
slags, but contribute largely to the iron product. 

The chemical analysis of certain ores discarded as impracticable, especially of Nos. 
3f>, 37 and 38, prove that their impracticability does not arise from the presence of 
Unusual quantities of injurious elements, such as sulphur, phosphorus, arsenic, or 
zinc, since they contain but a trace of sulphur, 0 15 per cent being the largest 
amount of that substance estimated in any of them, and 0.3 per cent of phosphorus, 
while no appreciable quantity of either arsenic or zinc was detected. Indeed it 
seems that the difficulties which have been encountered in reducing these ores arise 
from their very richness, containing, as they do, from sixty and nine-tenths (60.9) 
to thirtv-uine and four-tenths (39.4) per cent of metallic iron, and only from 3.47 
to 9.47 of insoluble silicates, while ores highly esteemed contain but twenty-nine 
(29) per cent of iron, and forty-five (45) per cent of insoluble silicates. It appears, 
therefore, that all that is necessary to render these ores available is the addition of 
earthy matter, either by mixing them with lean ores, so as to reduce the percentage 
of iron, and increase the quantity of silicious earths, or to introduce, with the rich 
ore, a certain quantity of ferruginous shale to the furnace burden. As this mate¬ 
rial is abundant throughout the iron region of Greenup county, often constituting 
the stripping of the ore banks, it can be easily obtained and applied lor this pur¬ 
pose, wffiere suitable mixtures of lean ores cannot be had The object to be 
obtained by these corrections is to insure the formation of a fluid slag or lava, that 
will flow freely, eliminate completely the metal, admit of its free carbonization, and 
thus increase the fusibility of the pig iron. Furnace slag being the index to the 
quality of the iron simultaneously produced. I selected, during my geological re- 
connoissance of Greenup county, various specimens of these glassy scoriae from 
different iron works, with special reference to the quality of the cast iron flowing 
from the furnace at the time of their production. The general results obtained by 
their chemical examination are as follows : The principal constituents are silica, 
lime and alumina, with small quantities of magnesia, potash, soda, and sometimes 
protoxide of iron and manganese. The normal quantity of silica is about fifty-six 
(56), lime twenty (20), alumina fifteen and five-tenths (15.5), other bases eight and 
five-tenths (8.5) per cent. The silica ranges from about fifty (50) to sixty (00) per 
cent; the lime from thirteen (13) to twenty-seven (27); the alumina from eleven 
and five-tenths (11.5) to twenty (20); the other bases from five to eleven. 

The glassy slags having, usually, a smoky purple color, produced when the furnace 
is making soft grey iron, contain very nearly the average or normal quantity of 
silica—fifty-six (56) per cent—with generally nearly the largest amount of lime. 
The opaque pea-green slag , No. 86, produced at the Raccoon furnace, contains the 
largest amount of silica, sixtv-one (61) percent. This was the least fusible of all 
the slags operated on, and contained very nearly three per cent of protoxide of iron. 
The white pumiciform slag contains the smallest quantity of silica, and the largest 
quantity of lime, and is the most fusible of all. Its extreme lightness and cellular 
structure are no doubt attributable to its fusibility, and the tendenev which the 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


709 


excess of lime has to remove sulphur and phosphorus, which, K@irfcucky. 
being disengaged suddenly in the form of sulphuretted and phos- 
phuretted hydrogen, in the midst of or underneath this fusible slag, puffs it up 
into the porous white cinder, which is not only remarkable for its extreme whiteness 
and lightness, but for the length of time it continues to disengage sulphuretted 
hydrogen, with a crackling sound, even for months after its removal from the fur¬ 
nace. This pumiciform slag has very nearly the same chemical constitution as the 
anhydrous prehnite , analyzed by Jackson and Whitney. The lime in this slag is 
considerably more than is required to flux the earthy ingredients; if the ore has 
a considerable amount of sulphur or phosphorus, then the predominance of lime 
may, perhaps, be found advantageous in removing the excess of the.se elements. 

The pea-green slag, No. 66, contains six per cent of protoxide of iron, equivalent 
to four and six-tenths (4.6) per cent of metallic iron; the largest amount of iron iu 
any of the slags analyzed. This loss of iron might be avoided, in part at least, by 
increasing the amount of lime about three per cent to replace the protoxide of irou. 
No. 52 contains the largest quantity of alumina. This is no doubt to be accounted 
for from the fact that the carbonate of iron—“grey limestone ore,” No. 49, worked 
at the Bellefonte furnace, where this slag was obtained—contains a larger quantity 
of alumina than any of the ores from which the slags analyzed have been derived. 

It does not appear, however, that the pig-iron from this furnace contains more than 
the average quantity of alumina. It is important to remark, that though the 
quantity of lime, alumina, and other bases, are liable to some little variation, even in 
the best slags—Nos. 40, 64, 65, 85, and 110—yet they all possess this chemical 
relation in common, as is shown by Dr. Peter’s Report, that the quantity of oxygen 
in these bases is, within a fraction of a per cent, one half, the oxygen contained in 
the associated silica or silicic acid; in other words, all these slags are bi-silicates , 
proving that there is no better mode of ascertaining whether the ore and flux are 
duly proportioned in the burden of the furnace, than by a chemical analysis of the 
slag. The pea-green slag, No. 112, produced at the New Hampshire furnace, pre¬ 
serves this normal proportion of oxygen in the bases and silica, though it produces a 
pig-iron of rather closer texture than usual; this may, perhaps, be accounted for 
from the manganese, which is nearly three per cent, or over two per cent, above the 
average quantity, and about one and a half per cent more than in any other slag on 
the analyzed list. This is no doubt derived from the very dark-brown red limonite 
ore, No. 106, worked at the New Hampshire furnace, which contains 2.15 per cent 
oxide of manganese, being the largest proportion of that oxide present in any of the 
ores analyzed, except No. 44, the “ Black vein,” of the Buena Vista ore banks, 
which has 2.92 ; No. 57, the dark-brown red “Little Block ore,” of the Buffalo ore 
banks, which has 3.15; No. 119, the top hill ore of the Clinton furnace, which has 
2.17 ; and No. 11, Wallace’s iron ore, from near the Falls of Blain, which has 3.41. ' 
It would require, however, a greater number of comparative analyses of ores, pig- 
iron, and slags, to be able to draw correct conclusions on this subject, especially as 
pig-irons Nos. 113 and 114, cast at the New Hampshire furnace, do not contain 
more than an average amount of manganese. 

A few general remarks on the chemical composition of the various specimens of 
pig-iron analyzed, may be useful: No. 89 contains the largest quantity of silica, 
6.88, which has evidently an injurious effect on the quality of the iron, as it is par¬ 
ticularly noted that when such iron is produced the furnace is working stiff, the iron 
is “ high ,” and no doubt has cold-short properties. This could easily be corrected 
by increasing the quantity of limestone Jlux , until the cinder flows free, and assumes 


710 


PART II. -DIVISION II. 


the appearance and composition of the true bi-silicate. This iron also contains the 
largest amount of manganese, 0.63. No. 114 contains the largest amount of phos¬ 
phorus, 1.4, and the largest but one of aluminium, 0.44, and the largest amount of 
graphite, 3.13, per cent. It is singular that though this pig-iron is light-colored, 
and fine-grained, it is jet comparatively soft. 2 The same remarks will apply, in a 
great measure, to No. 113, which contains only 0.08 more aluminium, and 0.1 less 
phosphorus, 0.3 less graphite than the preceding. The largest amount of free car¬ 
bon was found in No. 48, a soft grey pig-iron of a fine grain. The largest quantity 
of slag, 0.93 per cent, was obtained from No. 87, a soft but rather brittle iron. 
This iron also contains a large proportion of silica, 6.13, being only 1.75 less than 
No. 89, as well as a large amount of manganese, 0.59, which is only 0.04 less than 
No. 89. No. 42 contains the largest quantity of magnesium, and is a moderately 
fine-grained soft grey cast iron. No. 113 contains the largest amount of alkaline 
bases, viz.: 0.33 potassium, and 0.21 of sodium. 

Since the Greenup county impracticable ores are so rich in iron, and four feet in 
thickness , their successful reduction in the furnace becomes a matter of great 
practical importance, not only to the owners of ore banks but to the State of 
Kentucky. 

I would here also call the attention of iron-masters to the variable composition of 
the limestones used as fluxes at the different iron establishments in Greenup 
county—see Nos. 39, 51, 62, 63, 77, 84, 108 and 109 of Dr. Peter’s Report. The 
amount of insoluble silicates, ranging from a half to thirty per cent, showing the 
importance of a knowledge of the chemical composition of the limestones, as well as 
the ores, in adjusting the proportions of each. The composition of the limestone 
selected should always have relation to the composition of the ore to be fluxed ; for 
example, though a limestone like No. 84, containing thirty per cent of insoluble 
silicates, might be appropriated for ores deficient in silicious earths, like Nos. 36 and 
38, it would be altogether inappropriate for ores similar to specimens Nos. 31, 32, 
50, 54, 57, 69, 72, 80, 84, 94, 103 and 106, with which it would undoubtedly pro 
duce an iron having decidedly cold-short properties. When a limestone is used for 
flux containing large quantities of iron, as for instance, No. 76, which yields 13.19 
per cent of carbonate of iron, and 1.56 per cent of oxide of iron, it is necessary to 
use it in larger quantities than if it were a purer limestone, with merely a fraction 
of a per cent of iron, otherwise it will not afford the necessary quantity of lime to 
form the model cinder. Such a limestone should add six to seven per cent of iron 
to the furnace runs. 

When it is desired to avoid making a white and brittle iron, limestone, as well as 
ores containing more than one or two-tenths of a per cent of phosphorus, should be 
avoided, since experience seems to prove that the presence of even half a per cent 
of phosphorus in iron is sufficient to diminish its tenacity; though pig-iron produced 
from certain bog ores has been found to contain five and a half per cent of phos¬ 
phorus. Such iron is generally white and brittle. It is to be remarked, however, 
that some pig-iron which contains from four to six per cent of graphite and chemi¬ 
cally combined carbon, may contain one to one and a half per cent of phosphorus, 
and yet be grey iron. 

Half a per cent of sulphur in pig-iron does not appear materially to diminish the 
tenacity of the iron; it is even contended by some chemists that quantities of 
that element, under four-tenths of a per cent, rather increase its firmness. It is a 

2 See Dr. Peter’s Report for further remarks on this subject. 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


711 


well established fact, however, that two to three per cent of Kentucky, 
sulphur is very destructive to the qualities of pig-iron, rendering 
it white, brittle and porous, expelling, at the same time, the chemically combined 
carbon, required to be present in the composition of good grey iron. It is true, 
also, that sulphur, to a certain extent, may render iron more fusible, and therefore 
might even be desirable to the amount, say of one or two per cent, in making fine 
castings, if it had not, at the same time, a tendency to cause the fluid iron to 
chill suddenly on the surface, before the gases and vapors have escaped from the 
interior and thus render the castings porous and imperfect. (Lyon in Owen.) 

Owen’s Diagram No. 3 of the East Kentucky Coal Field, in 
Greenup and Carter counties south of the Ohio river, shows in a 
height of 740 feet from theTygart creek sub-carboniferous lime¬ 
stone, up to the Rough and Ready ore bank which supplies 
Sandy furnace, no less than fourteen distinct beds of ore, 
from 3 inches to 4 feet each, and yielding from 25 per cent to 60 
per cent of iron from the raw ore. One of these beds from the 
east fork of Little Sandy near the Lexington and Big Sandy 
railroad location line contains 11 per cent bitumen as well as 32 
per cent iron and may therefore be called a “black band” ore, 
averaging 12 inches thick. Another of these beds, used at 
Sandy furnace, contains 21 per cent lime, and is therefore as 
much of a flux as an ore. 3 

Sandy furnace makes from these ores a very liquid iron. The Rough and Ready 
ore bed lies 5 feet under a sandstone high in the hills, varies from 8 to 13, and runs 
up to 24 inches wherever it is mixed with a green calc rock and the ore is then poorer. 
It is regarded as the highest workable bed in Carter and Lawrence. It is some¬ 
times underlaid by 2 or 3 feet of limestone. A few producta and spirifera occur in 
the green rock. 

Mount Savage furnace uses the Stinson bank ore, high in the hill to the northeast 
Section :—Massive sandstone 30 feet; interval (of shale etc. ?) 30 feet; Limestone 
ore replaced sometimes by limestone , 1 to 3 feet; green shale 1 foot; cannel coal 3 
(sometimes 5?) feet; sandstone 30 feet; ash shales 10 feet; Kidney ore 4 to 12 
inches; block ore rough 3 to 8 inches; interval, sandstone above shale below, 25 
to 40 feet; coal. 4 —Other beds of ore are spoken of near the furnace.—Mr. Lyon 
obtains in Carter county, one and a half miles from this furnace, the following sec¬ 
tion showing the position of the ore beds and also the contrast with the section at 
Clinton furnace given below : 


3 Analysis Specific gravity 2.8121 Lime 21.8, silica 21.1, alumina 11.5, (silicate of 
alumina 25.6, free alumina 6.5, free silica 0.5), soda 2.5, potash 0.6, magnesia 0.4, phos¬ 
phoric acid 0.8, sulphur 0.01, water 2.7, carbonic acid 18.8, protoxide iron 2.5, peroxide 
iron 16.7=13.65 iron.—The Top hill ore which is mixed with this calc ore yielded per¬ 
oxide iron 61.0, silicates 17.0, alumina 14.0, water 7.3=42.7 iron. Mixed half and half 
these ores yield 28.17 iron and 10.4 lime. See Dr. Peter’s Report Nos. 13, 14. Owen’s 
vol. i. p. 183. 

4 Analysis—see Dr. Peter’s Report, Nos. 116, 117, vol. i., p. 328. 


712 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


378.0 top of hill near Iron-road. 

372.0 top of heavy Sandstone; 351 foot of exposure. 

340.8. Heavy Sandstone, top of steep slope. 

292.9. Shales, clayey, at highest point of road. 

275.8. Red Streak, small amount of surface Ore. 

260 8 top of Sandy Shales; 250 soft sandy shal^ 

244.8. top of Red Streak and foot of sandy shales. 

228.8. top of yellow streak and bottom of red shales. 

223.4. Rough Block Ore, (bottom) 3 feet thick here. 

218.0. foot of Sandstone. 

212.8. Kidney Ore, (place of the diggings, referred to the road.) 

196.8. Limestone Ore, 5 6 (seen on opposite hill, referred to the road.) 

191.4. top of sandy shales. 

175.4 Black Streak, in shales; coal? 170.0 white clay. 

138.0 Shales sandy ; 135.0. Sandstone 20 inches thick. 

121.0. Grey Kidney Ore 6 under a 5 foot Red Streak. 

110.4. top of a 20 inch layer of sandstone. 

99.8 Three Black Streaks, whitish clay between. 

94.4. top of a 14 inch layer of sandstone. 

83.8. Black Streak 12 inches thick, under 4 feet shales. 

62.4. Gravel Ore in whitish earth, making a yellow streak. 

57.0. top of a double 20 inch layer of sandstone. 

52.4. top of a single 15 inch layer of sandstone ; 41. top of slope. 

14.0 Iron road ; 0.0 Bed of Branch 16 feet above Gum branch coal, which 
is the equivalent of the Clinton furnace coal.—Passing round the head of the 
branch, the above ore beds have been opened extensively, and on the north side of 
the hill (of the section) an excellent block ore (not in the section) 75 feet below the 
base of the massive sandstone capping the hill, has been wrought. 1 

Star furnace has one bed of yellow kidney ore 20 feet below, and another 30 feet 
above, the main 51, foot coal (110 feet below the top of the ridge). There must be 
therefore a third ore bed 50 feet above the coal, and a fourth skimming the tops of 
the ridge. 8 Hr. Lyon in speaking of the Star furnace branch of William’s creek 
gives the following section, in which the so called “twin coal” is remarkable as a 


fixed horizon in all this Greenup county geology:— 

Interval concealed 25 feet; sandy shale 4,. 29 

Coal 2 (parting clay 4 inches), coal 2i, floor clay 1J,. 6 

:Sandstone and shale alternately for. 20 

Blue Ore Bed in shale, estimated at. 3 

Sandstone and shale 34| feet; black clay \ . 36 

Star furnace sandstone,. 26 

Sand shales, dark grey,. 80 


Sand-and clay- shales alternately; Stinson creek cannel; the Star furnace 
sandstone mentioned above caps the dividing ridge between Stinson and William’s 
.creek. 9 

Buena Vista furnace has a dark ore in the same position as the first mentioned 

5 On the hill to the eastward this ore is both stripped and drifted on. 

6 The diggings are in white argillaceous shale. 7 Lyon, in Owen, vol. ii. p. 363. 

3 Owen, vol. i. p. 186. 

9 In Owen’s second vol. p. 353. The identifications on the following pages are cer 

tainly calculated to excite surprise, if not some doubt. 









CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


713 


at Star furnace; but its best ore is also (as at Star) 30 feet above Kentucky. 

the coal; ten feet higher is a brown grey earthy limestone ore 

and twenty feet higher still is the “top hill ore,” within 20 feet of the summit of the 

ridge. Still higher summits have a “ blue kidney” ore.—Locally there is also found 

a “ blue block ” ore low in the hills, lying sometimes above sometimes below a thin 

coal. 8 

Clinton furnace uses the top hill fossiliferous limestone ore ; a dark grey granular 
carbonate, yellowish outside, 1| to 3 feet thick ; a black-band layer 1 foot thick un¬ 
der the coal; and a green limestone ore 25 per cent. 1 There is a nodular bed 40 or 
50 feet above the main coal which at Ashland is 170 above low water at Ashland on 
the Ohio (=650 above tide.) The Clinton furnace ores average 30 per cent raw and 
40 per cent roasted. In the cut of the Clinton furnace road Mr. Lyon gets the follow¬ 
ing section which exhibits the red shale bands high in the coal measures, useful here 
as a geological horizon, just as the red bands of the Barren measures are in the 


Alleghany and Monongahela river country: 

Sandstone 8 ; yellow shale 3 ; black clay 2 ; yellow shales 5,. 18 

Red Streak 10; sandstone 11,.. ... 21 

Red Streak 5; sandy shales 16 ; sandstone 5,. 26 

Shales yellow-grey 32 ; interval 11, . 43 


Top of soft sandstone above Ashland or Clinton furnace coal. The ore beds do not 
seem to appear in the section, although their places above this soft sandstone are 
marked in another section near the Clinton furnace thus: 

1171 feet... .top of bench and foot of 5 foot red streak. 

79f “ .. .Ore diggings, kidney ore. 

371 “ ... .Ore diggings in sandy shale. 

0 .top of sandstone over Well and under Clinton furnace coal. 

The following more elaborate section at Mr. Burwell’s house near the Clinton fur¬ 
nace is given on page 361 : 2 

216.4 top of sandstone covered with red earth. 

218.4 Sandstone, two beds ; locally underlaid by Ore, 14 inch. 

206.4. Shales, sandy, yellow, much slipped. 

191.4. Sandstone, top of solid ledges, 5 feet seen. 

180.8. Sandstone, fossiliferous; locally “top hill bastard lime ore,” 8 in. 3 

178.8. Shales sandy, 15 feet. 

154.8. Black streak 15 inches thick ; brown-red fire clay, 6 feet. 4 
147-8. Red block ore beds, 10 to 12 inches thick. 

137.0 Shales, sandy and clayey alternately. 

116.0 Red streak (top of it) 5 feet thick. 

108.0 Shales whitish, clayey above, sandy below. 

105.4 Sandstone (top of it) in four ledges. 

101.0 Shales clayey. 

85.0 Sandstone 18 inches thick in beds of shale. 

69.0 Sandstone 12 inches thick in beds of sandy shale. 

42.10 Sandstone 18 inches thick in beds of sandy shales. 

8 Analysis—see Dr. Peter’s Report, Nos. 44, etc., p. 288. 

1 See Dr. Peter’s Report, Nos. 119, 120, 121, 122. Owen, vol. i. p. 329. 

2 Lyon, in Owen, vol. ii. 

3 This fossil bed is 8 inches thick, between thin shales, fossils calcareous and perhaps 
cement calcareous; sandstone fine grained. 

4 From 147.8 to 156 are the beds producing the red streak across the country. 







714 


PAKT II.-DIVISION II. 


32.00 Carbonate ot iron, sheet 2 or 3 inches thick. 

20.4. Clinton furnace coal (roof) 4 feet thick. 

0.0. Shales sandy and then Hard Sandstone over Well coal. 

BeUefonte furnace has its main ore over a bed of limestone ranging extensively 
through the neighboring hills. The ore varies from 1 to 4 feet, in dark ash shale, 
hematized at the outcrop.—At a lower level lies a “ blue limestone ” ore under a 
sandrock. 8 These raw ores yield 31 per cent metal on the average. Mr. Lyon 
gives a section here, to contrast with one at Hood’s creek, a mile off, to show how 
rapidly the measures change:— 

8 feet earth above limestone. 

3$- “ argillaceous shales. 

£ to | limestone ore. 

4 feet limestone. 

1 foot shales. 

21 feet pebbly coarse sand. 

coal streaks in shale. 


2i 


31 


u 


sandstone. 


Clay stripped, 

feet 15 

Limestone ore. 

$ to 1 

Limestone .... 

1 to 4 

Fire clay .... 

o 

Li 

Blue-grey shale 18, sand 15 

23 

Black shales 

14 

Coal 32', under clay 2, 

Oi 

Sandstone .... 

31 


Mr. Lyon gives at Bellefonte furnace four sections No. 14, 14a, 145, 14c, (the 
first made in Lanheim hollow on the company’s lands, to show the whole series 
of rocks for 200 feet; and the second on Wolf hill west side of Hood’s creek, the 
third opposite the drain, and the fourth three hundred yards further south) to show 
the variations in the limestone ore bed. 

No. 14. 


Hill top. 

. 198 feet 0 

No. 145. 

Interval. 

. 80 

t; 

0 


Clay shale. 

. 12 

tt 

0 

White clay shale. 

Stripping. 

2 

tt 

9 

Tilflplc nlflv alln 1 a 

Fire clay. 

. 4 

tt 

4 

Ash clay shale. 

Black clay. 


tt 

7 

Black clay shale. 

Sandy shale. 

. 3 

it 

6 

White clay shale. 

Limestone Ore. 


tt 

8 

Limestone ore. 

Limestone 6 . 

5 

tt 

5 

Limestone. 

Clay bed, coal 7 . 

5 

tt 

0 


Sand shales. 

. 31 

u 

0 


Interval, coal. 


(( 

7 


Hearth rock. 

. 7 

a 

0 


Sand shales. 

. *22 

tt 

0 


Interval. 

. 15 

u 

0 


No. 14a. 




No. 14c. 

Hard sandstone. 

. 10 feet 0 

Alternate beds white \ 

Clav shale. 

7 

tt 

0 

and black clay four r 

Black clay shale. 


tt 

10 

black in one foot C 

White clay shale. 

7 

a 

0 

thick each. / 

Limestone ore. 

1 

tt 

2 

Limestone ore 

Sandstone. 

10 

tt 

0 

Limestone . 


8 Dr. Peter’s No. 49 to 53. 

a Limestone, upper surface water worn and uneven; beds lumpy; 
ledges of even thickness. 7 Locally a thin coal. 


13 feet 0 
“ 10 
4 “ 0 
1 “ 0 
4 “ 0 

1 “ 0 
4 “ 6 


27 feet 0 


1 “ 6 
4 “ 6 


lower beds ic 


































CARBONATE ORES-COA.L MEASURES. 


715 


Amanda furnace is the only one of all the furnaces in the Kentucky. 
Ohio and Kentucky Hanging Hock region which stands upon the 
Ohio river ; a mile above Ironton on the Kentucky side. Its principal ore beds lie 
290 and 310 feet above low water, in nests, through ferruginous shale. Its “blue 
block” ore with shales lies 95 feet above low water, but is accounted silicious and 
impracticable, although Dr. Peter found in it but 9.6 per cent insoluble silicates. 
He suggests that it contains too little and not too much; melts too quickly and can¬ 
not form a slag to protect the iron from the blast; it should be wrnrked with earth 
or earthy ores. The tough iron ores of Amanda furnace were found to contain 20 
per cent silicates, and the red and blue mixed black ore 25 per cent. Here were 
obtained the slags of various colors experimented on as said above. s 

Carolina furnace uses ore on limestone 150 feet above the main coal (3 feet 
thick), and also a top-hill yellow kidney ore. A section here is as follows: 9 

260 top of dividing ridge between Indian creek and Ohio waters ; 

240 Rough top-hill ore 8 to 15 inches, under balls. 

Shales and sandstones 40 ; interval 10 ; shale 5 ; soft sand 21; 

168 interval place for Limestone ore and Limestone 10 ; 

Sandstone (slipped down?) 10; shale 10; fire-clay? 5 ; 

125 place of ore bed of steam furnace at 152, but nothing but some loose ore 
found which had come down from the limestone ore place at 168; inter¬ 
val 10 ; soft sand shales 15 ; clay etc. 16 ; black clay 3 ; 

80 place of Clinton furnace coal ? interval 36 ; 

sandstone 37 ; black shales and then 
7 coal; equivalent of Star, Steam, Clinton, Indian creek coal; 

0 underclay ; sandy shales ; branch bed at stack. 

Steam furnace uses the same and mixes also one-sixth of a “ block ore.” In the 
hills between these two furnaces are heavy beds of limestone overlaid by 3 to 4 feet 
of ore. Going up to Carrington Bank is the following section: 1 

241 clay and shales 16 feet; 

225 Little block ore and under it balls in clay, 5 feet; 

Conglomerate and coarse sandstone 26 feet; 
clay varying from nothing to 30 feet; 

191 Limestone ore Carrington Bank, 0 to 4 feet thick; 

Limestone (flux), 5 feet (at Steam furnace 8 feet) ; 
clay beds 10; interval 16; clay 16; 

152 Block and kidney ore 9 "6 to "15 on coal-streaked clay; 

Sandstone 5 ; clay shales 5 ; shales and sands 38; sandstone ; 

93 Little block ore ; 

clay and mica sand-shale. 32 feet; coal? 3 and underclay 5 ; 
clay and mud sand-shales 21 ; sandstone 35 ; 

0 Datum at Clerk’s house, 6 feet above bed of branch. 

8 Owen, vol. i. p. 191. 

0 Lyon in Owen, vol iii. p. 435. 1 Lyon in Owen, vol. iii. p. 432. 

2 Equivalent of main Raccoon and Buffalo beds, and the Buck Smith and Red Bank 
Laurel beds. 

3 Equivalent to the Indian run coal, Caroline furnace coal and Clinton furnace upper 
coal. 


716 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Pennsylvania furnace smelts eight varieties of ore, six of them hydrous-peroxides 
(limonite outcrops of carbonate beds), and two of them carbonates. There are four 
principal beds above the Four fort main coal, besides minor local beds; a little 
block ore 4 inches thick 30 feet below the coal, and 10 to 15 feet under a sandstone 
quarried for hearth-stones which itself contains from 25 to 35 per cent iron; a 
rough inferior block ore 110 feet above the coal; a limestone ore, average 18 inches 
thick, 130 ? feet above the coal, 42 per cent iron, 21 per cent carbonate lime; a rich 
limonite over limestone 51 per cent iron and no carbonate of lime , place unknown 
to Dr. Owen ; a top-hill ore, 8 inches average, 38 per cent iron, 14 per cent carb. 
lime; a limonite (very pure 61 per cent iron!) 3.5 silicates and no carb. lime, ac¬ 
counted impracticable at the works, but only needing mixture; a four-foot carbon¬ 
ate bed (over limestone) 39 per cent iron, 9.5 per cent silicates, 3 per cent 
carb. lime, also considered impracticable at the works, but easily made valuable by 
mixing with lean ore, black slate, and an extra dose of limestone.—In the hills be¬ 
tween Pennsylvania and Greenup furnaces, a cannal coal underlies the top-hill ores. 4 
Lyon gives the following section ascending Cane creek, by the road to the latter: 

244.8 top of hill, loose Rough Sandstone 

228.8 Rough block ore bed ; 217.0 top of covered slope. 

162.8 Soft sandstones on an interval of sandy shales, etc. 

69.0 Small ore bed in road at foot of steep slope. 

37.8 bottom of clay shales ; 27.0 sandy shales in place. 

20.0 top of steep slope ; after which comes at water level 

0.0 Sandstone (top), thick bedded, thin bedded, ledges 7 feet thick as seen 
between 39. and 21. of another section (at Greenup furnace) and con¬ 
taining fossil shells (mostly spirifera). Beginning with 0.0 above = 39.0 
we have again 

0.0 top of shales, I65 feet thick, overlying coal bed 16| feet beneath water. 5 

Greenup furnace has seven varieties of ore, five unmixed limonites; the big 
block yields 47.7 per cent iron, the red ochre 18.6 per cent ; the average of the 
seven is 37 per cent and of the six best 40.5 percent; proportion of flux one- 
tenth. There is a yellow limestone which contains iron enough to work out without 
flux. 

Buffalo furnace has its ore high in the hills, the main block being 75 feet above 
a six-inch coal which is 125 feet above water level; the banks are two miles off, 
and yield eight varieties, the eighth being a limestone 67 per cent with 11 per cent 
iron and only valuable as a flux. The main block 10 to 12 inches thick resting on 
bastard limestone with 6 inches of shale between yields 49 per cent down to 34 per 
cent iron The whole will average 41 per cent. The grey block carbonate 28 per 
cent iron containing 46 per cent carb. lime. Over the main block 1 to 3 feet 
(shale) lies the little block and over this kidney ore in grey, yellow and black 
shales; stripping 6 to 12 feet. 

Raccoon furnace uses only limonite ore averaging together 52 per cent metal; 
the richest is the main upper kidney high in the hills, 56 per cent; the •* limestone 
ore ” containing no limestone (only 0.5 per cent) lies two-thirds up the hill ; the red 
block, 11 inches thick, 53 per cent; the lower block ore, 6 inches, 80 feet up the 

4 Owen, vol. i. p. 193 

6 Lyon, in Owen, vol. ii. p. 372. The section on page 373 is interesting, but not yet 
identified. 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


TIT 


hills. Charge of flux, one-tenth, cost of ore $2 50 to $3 00, Kentucky, 
charcoal to the ton of iron 200 bushels. 

In Owen’s 3d vol. (pp. 428 to 449) Mr. Lyon gives sixteen sections of the sub- 
carboniferous and carboniferous measures containing the ore beds wrought at the 
furnaces of Greenup and Carter counties and concludes with remarks the substance 
of which is here added. Most of the sections (No. 9 excepted) begin at or near 
the top of the Devonian knob sandstone and measure upwards into the coal. No. 1 
at Kenton furnace shows three workable ore beds in a space of 45 feet. No 3 
at Raccoon furnace has six ore horizons in 315 feet; those at 15 and 120-S feet 
are not known as workable beds anywhere ; that at 60 feet elevation is locally a 
valuable ore, even 18 inches thick ; that at 311 has not been wrought unless the under- 
clay ore a mile distant be the same ; the chief ores are obtained from on top of a 
60 foot sand-rock (over a small worthless coal over the poor ore at 120) near the 
hill-tops, and reached most of it by stripping ; it is known by a great number of 
owners’ names, and supplies Buffalo furnace from the hill-tops between Clay lick 
and Old town. 6 “ All the ore beds west of Little Sandy river from Laurel furnace 
to the Ohio river, except the Baker bank are found in this section No 3 notwith¬ 
standing the multitude of names by which they may be distinguished and the in¬ 
finite variety they present at the various points at which they have been opened 
in this large scope of country.” The following is Lyon’s section No. 3, made 
from Raccoon furnace towards the northeast: 

341 Poor ore ; ferruginous conglomerate, top of dividing ridge ; 

336 Limestone ore beds of Laurel. Steam, Caroline furnaces ; 
interval, mostly argillaceous shales, 45 feet; 
shale sandstone and clay Triplett bank beds, 20 feet; 

271 Company’s ore bank, 10 to 12 inches; 

interval. 16 feet, place of Raccoon and Buffalo ore banks ; 7 
Bluff of massive sandstone, top and bottom thin bedded, 8 41 feet; 

214 local thin coal. 

interval, mostly of soft shales 16 ; sandy mica, shales 10; 

thick very soft sandstone 18 ; soft bedded sandstone 9 ; sand shales 5 ; 

155 ore sandy, poor, not worked, 6 inches ; 

interval of thin sands, mud shales, etc 16 feet; 

coarse sandstone, even bedded 15 ; hearth rock 18 inches ; 

133 Shale 5, rock H (used for furnace stack) 
sandy shales, etc. 35 feet; 

93 local clay and thin coal 4 feet; 

thin soft sandstones and shale 10; interval, shales 21; 

65 Sandy ore here 4 (i mile east 18) inches thick; 
sandstone soft 7 ; ash and grey shale 38; 

15 Carbonate ore of XI (see sections No. 15, 16). 
dark-grev shales of Raccoon creek 7 ; 

0 Sub-carboniferous Limestone ? at bottom of pit 8 feet deep. 

6 The two horizons, says Lyon, are certainly the same notwithstanding the remarkable 
difference in the ores. 

7 The horizontal position occupied by equivalent ore beds are severally thus : Brown 
bank 295 feet; Company’s bank 340 ; Tipton bank 350 ; all in one hill. 

» The middle of this mass is very thick bedded, composed of thick angular sand and 
quartz pebbles, marked by ferruginous belts and patches. 


718 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


These beds at Laurel furnace in the following section contain the Baker Bank 
ore stratum excepted by Lyon from the section just given. The upper 89 feet of 
this section is quite local, capping only a few of the hills: 

465 interval, clays, etc. 89 feet. 

376 interval shales, 4 to 30 feet ; sandstone 30 to 4 feet, 
the sandstone being local and often pebbly ; dark 
clay 1 to 30 feet. 

867 Baker Bank Limestone Ore. 

Coal from 0 to 4 feet thick ; fire-clay 1 to 4; 
shale 1 to 10 feet; interval in all 38 feet containing 
Place for Red and Buck Smith Banks. 

229 top of bench (sand ?) 10 ; clay ; shales 5 ; sand 1 ; shales 15 ; clay 4 ; 
sandy shales 30; flag stone 5 ; black clay shale 4 to 5 ; 
shaly sandstones 16 ; soft coarse (Raccoon bosh) stone 
lower part false bedded 15 ; drab micaceous sandy shales 27 ; 

187 Sandy, kidney, block Ore, 3 to 5 inches; 

shales 10 ; interval 10 ; shales 30 ; Raccoon hearth rock 43 ; 

93 Lowest Ore bed at Laurel; rough, block, sandy, 
shales, etc. 17 ; sandstone, flagstone, etc. 55 feet; 

0 top of Laurel furnace stack; thin bedded hard sandstone 10; 
sandstone ledges solid, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 feet thick each ; XII; 

50 under which come shales and a small coal and then the 
sub-carboniferous limestone XI. 

The character of these ore beds may be studied in the following sections 12 (a), 


2 (la), 12 (2a), 12 (b), 12 (lb), 

12 (2b), 

12 (3b), at the different banks : 


12 Island Bank. 9 


12 (a) Dennis Sheridan Bank. 

i 

Thin flag-stone. 

. 1“2 



Clay irony shale. 

. 4“0 



Mud sandstone ' . 

.. 1“0 

Argillaceous shale. 

3“0 

Calcareous ore 3 . 

. “2 

Kidney ore 3 to. 

“6 

Sandy mudstone. 

. “3 

Sandv shale. 

2“9 

Block ore.. 

. 4“0 

Little block ore “3 to. 

“5 

Sandstone.. 

. “3 



Rough blue block ore. 

.. “9 

Blue block, not used. 

“9 

Soft sandstone. 


Sandstone, top soft. 


12 (la) Moran and Cramp Bank. 

12 (2a) Buck Smith Bank, Laurel Furnace. 

Stripping earth. 

. 4“0 

1 Stripping earth. 

5“0 

Kidney ore decomposed.... 


Fine hard sandstone. 

1“8 

Fire-clav, good. 

.. 3“0 

Fire-clay, coal streaks. 

7“0 

Reddish clay shale. 

.. 1“0 

Kidney ore “8 to . 

“12 

Muddv sandstone. 

.. “10 

Square kidney ore. 

“4 

Solid block ore 3 . 

.. 2“2 

Limestone ore double 4 . 

1“8 

Sandstone. 

.. 38“0 

i Sandstone, top thick. 

40“0 


9 On Island Bank Buffalo furnace chiefly depends. 

1 Formerly Bailey Bank, Buffalo furnace. Contains entrochites. 

3 Of Uniform texture throughout, separating into two unequal parts by a line parallel 
to neither face of the bed. 

4 Contains entrochites. 
































CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


719 


12 (t) Tipton far Bank, Raccoon Furnace. 

11 (lb) Blue Block Bank 


Stripping earth. 


Raccoon Furnace. 


Lumpv sandstone . 




Fine sand shale. 

.... 4“3 

Stripping earth. 

.. 4“0 

Coal streak. 

.... “1 

Clav shale, coal streaks. 

.. 7“0 

Fire-clav dark grey. 

.... 2“0 

Kidney ore . 

“5 

Black clay shale . 

. .. 2“6 

Clav shale, black streaks.... 

... 2“9 

Variegated shales........ 

. ... 1“6 

Little block ore . 

“3 

Red ore, double. 

.... 1“0 

Red ore . 

. . “6 

Sandstone soft; then massive containin 

g pebbles ; in both sections .. . 

.. 50“6 

12 (2b) Poynter Bank, Raccoon Furnace. 

12 (8b) Company Bank, Raccoon Furnace. 

Stripping. 

.. . . 4“0 

Stripping. 

5“0 

Clay shale. 

.... 2“0 

Sandstone with plants.... 

.. 2“o 

Kidney balls in clay. 

.... 3“9 

Clay shale. 

.. 7“0 

Block Red ore 3 to. 

. “8 

Block ore 5 18 to. 

.. 2“o 

Blue fine ore. 

.... “12 



Soft sandstone ; then massive sandstone 

; in both sections. 


Laurel furnace has its lower bed 95 feet above the forks of Old Town creek, but 


its principal beds from 25 to 40 feet below the tops of its ridges, in black, yellow 
and grey shales. The main block is 14 inches thick and worked by drifts as well as 
stripped. It is mostly dark brown or red. passing downwards into a ferruginous 
limestone and upwards into Kidney ore. The main Baker ore bed runs from 6 to 16 
inches and underlies the Kidney ore, with shale between. The Ward ore runs from 
4 to 6 inches. Locally the Baker ore becomes a limerock 3 feet thick. The Birch 
bank Kidney ore has sulphate of lime in its fissures. The Conglomerate sandstone 
(XII) seems to face the creek banks. 

Kenton furnace has banks near by and two miles off, and principally uses (two- 
thirds of the burden) block ore, 6 to 8 inches thick, 290 feet high in the hills; the 
other third is limestone ore 60 or 70 feet lower, 8 inches to 3 feet thick. A little 
kidney ore overlies the block and both cost $2 00, the limestone ore $2 50 at the 
furnace. This limestone ore must be one of the lowest in the coal measures here.* 
Flux charge, 40 lbs. to 700 lbs. roasted ore ; iron tough bar, axe, car wheel. 

New Hampshire furnace uses ores in the same geological position as the last 
described. Its “speckled ore” or ore of XI, has been already described. Its five 
other kinds are hydrate outcrops of the coal measure ore beds. The block ores 
occur near the hill tops. The limestone ore varies from to 4 feet between sandstone 
and limestone, the latter thinning out from the head of Buffalo to White creek. 7 

In Lawrence, Johnson, Ploy'd, Pike, Letcher, Perry etc., 

Dr. Owen describes or alludes to numerous exposures of coal 
measure ores few of which seem to he of prominent importance, 
although some are of interest. The kidney ore of the Swift mine 
on Yellow creek of Log mountain near the furnace line, contains 
some disseminated sulphuret of zinc and lead, and white powdery 
hydrated silicate of alumina . 8 The equally notorious “ silver ” 
iron ore in Whitby county below the falls of the Cumberland is 

6 Fiftv yards from this bank this solid bed is subdivided into two by a muddy sandstone 
which attains the thickness of 12 inches; ores and sandstones very unevenly bedded ; the 
ore beds averaging 8 inches each. 7 Owen, vol. i. p. 199. 

• Is in fact the ore of XI described on page above. 8 Vol. i. p. 222. 






























720 


PART II.-DIVISION n. 


the sub-carboniferous ore of XI; contains 42 per cent iron and 
also contains occasionally disseminated sulphuret of iron, zinc 
and traces of lead, antimony and arsenic, and the same white 
povvdry scarbroite . In Pulaski county there is not only this ore 
bed 15 or 20 feet above the sub-carboniferous limestone, but 
another and probably more productive one 90 feet above it, 
which would put it in the neighborhood of the first bed of coal 
above the conglomerate. 9 In the southeast part of Pulaski the 
coals of the Cumberland and Rockcastle rivers can be traced 
along the waters of Indian creek with considerable beds of car¬ 
bonate of iron occupying a geological position apparently iden¬ 
tical with that of the Xolin beds in Edmonson. 1 

In the level country of Laurel county, underlaid by the con¬ 
glomerate, the shales of the lower coal measures contain large 
quantities of ore, associated with a 3-feet bed, well worthy atten¬ 
tion from iron manufacturers. The exact place spoken of is on 
the White Oak branch of Little Rockcastle river. Where the 
Mount Vernon road crosses the Rockcastle, the section is as fol¬ 
low's :—Millstone grit (XII) sandstones 60 foot; shaly sandstones 
and ferruginous thin bedded shales, including much silicious 
oxide of iron, 238 feet; sub-carboniferous limestone 102 feet 
down to water edge and consisting of limestones and marly 
shales w r ith some hydrated oxide of iron especially in the shah 
near the upper limit. Strange to say on the other side of the 
river the sub-carboniferous limestone stands but 40 feet out of 
water and is capped directly by a coarse conglomerate. 2 


The scheme of the West Kentucky coals given in Owens 
vol. i. p. 46, is as follows:— . _ . 

1. Coal, li to 3 feet . . Anvl1 rock ,nterval 

2. Coal (Middle) 3 feet . 

3. Coal (Main 5-foot “Pittsburg” Lesq.)* 

4. Coal (Well) 2 to 2-J- feet 


5. Coal (Little vein) 3 feet 

6. Coal (Four-foot) 4 feet 

7. Coal (Curlew) 2J- feet . 

8. Coal (Icehouse) 2-J- feet 

9. Coal (Bell) 4 feet . . 

10. Coal (Cook) 2^ feet . . 


interval . 
^interval . 
interval . 
interval . 
interval . 
interval . 
Iron ore interval . 

interval . 
interval . 
whole distance 


43 feet 
46 
67 
86 3 
112 4 
65 5 
95 
157 
154 
73 

998 feet. 


2 Vol. i. p. 242. 4 On tlie Saline, 95. 

3 On the Saline, 100. 5 On the Saline. 32. 


9 Vol. i. p. 237. 
1 Vol. i. p. 238. 





CARBONATE DEES-COAL MEASURES. 


721 


These coals are rearranged in the Third Yo- __ 
lame and numbered not downwards from 1 to 
10 but upwards from 1 to 12. The iron ores of the shales 
immediately overlying the Icehouse coal (Lyon’s 8th and 
Lesquereux’s 3d 6 ) are described on pages 56, 57, as “ impor¬ 
tant beds of calcareous iron-stones,” capable if required of 
being mined in connection with the coal, which itself is 
described as the best coking or furnace coal bed in the 
region. It is curious that the bed in Pennsylvania with which 
Lesquereux is disposed to identify this bed is a particularly line 
iron smelting coal, as where it appears between the Beaver and 
the Conneconessing rivers, overlying there at some distance 
the buhrstone iron ore. Of the ore, Dr. Owen says, that in the 
ten feet above the Icehouse coal there are seven or eight distinct 
bands, partly continuous and partly interrupted. Having 
opened up their outcrops fairly to measurement, he estimated 
the average thickness of each band at 2 inches (from 1 to 4), of 
the whole at 16 inches. A fine-grain specimen is thus 
described :—Specific gravity 3.135 to 3.591, iron 43.76, oxygen 
10.84, carbonic acid 31.00, silicates 8.50, etc. A coarser speci¬ 
men yielded 30.3 iron, silicates 30.0, etc. 7 —Above these shales 
and a sandstone on top of them are other shales containing beds 
of nodular ore. 

Besides these deposits, Owen considers deserving of atten¬ 
tion as containing ores the 40 or 50 feet of shales over the Main 
coal and the 3 or 4 feet of shales beneath its underclay; the 
shales over the sandstone over the Well coal; those under the 
Four-foot coal; and those at the base of the Finnie bluff. Under 
the Well coal is another sandstone in the shales under which he 
found in some places five regular bands of calc-ironstone, from 
2 to 6 inches (specific gravity 3.6, iron 27.5), or 14 to 17 inches 
in 12 to 14 feet, 8 Judging by the experience of the eastern 
works it is not likely that any of all these named deposits will 
ever be used to profit. 

In Muhlenberg and Hopkins counties in western Ken¬ 
tucky numerous beds of crop-brown-hematite and ot ferruginous 


* Perhaps; see page 534, vol. iii. Kentucky repoi’t. 

7 The 8-inch vein in the Hawesville section on the Ohio river has much clay ironstone 
over it and may identify itself hereafter with this Icehouse coal of Union county. 
Owen , i. p. 180. 8 Kentucky Report, vol. i. p. 58. 


46 


722 


rART II.—DIVISION II. 


black slate (so called blackband ore) occur. 9 With regard to 
the latter Dr. Owen and Dr. Peter agree after numerous ana¬ 
lyses that only such specimens as have a specific gravity of 2.9 
to 3.0 and upwards, and present layers of black and brown, or 
reddish-grey colors, can be considered productive. Samples 
tried from Hopkins county weighing 2.56 to 2.71, uniformly 
black or grey-black, only yielded 6 to 7 per cent iron, while 
they contained 40 to 70 per cent carbonate of lime. As in 
the eastern coal fields the beds of carbonate of lime become 
beds of carbonate of iron, and vice versa, without betraying the 
change to ordinary observation, so in the western coal regions 
where the lime is more generally diffused, beds of black carbon¬ 
aceous limestone become beds of black ferruginous limestone, or 
vice versa, lose their iron and take more lime, while they retain 
their bitumen. No specimen of iron ore of this sort can be con¬ 
sidered worthy of attention then unless it weighs at least two- 
thirds (-§-) as much in water as it weighs in the air. 1 

A bed of iron 3 feet thick under limestone is reported as passed 
through in the Kurzeman shaft at Williams landing on Green 
river; and 3 feet shale with ore under limestone occurs at 
Davies’s ridge in Cypress creek and Pone river forks in the 
northern corner of Muhlenberg county. 2 This William s-land- 
ing-shaft section as given on page 143 reads thus : Limestone 3 
feet; iron ore 3 feet; sandstone 15 feet; shale 15 feet; coal 8 
inches, said to be 4 feet on Pond creek; hard bands of sand¬ 
stone with shale bands and some iron-stone layers 58 feet; 
“ black-band ” 1 foot; coal feet, brash; fire-clay 4 feet; 
iron ore balls and bituminous shale 6 feet; hard calc rock 
containing pyrites 3-J feet; sandstone etc. 

A slaty “ black-band ” ore, yielding 36.5 per cent iron, 2 feet 
thick, under clay slate with nodular ore, and over black shale 
(5 feet) over coal (2J feet),—and a 2^-foot 43.5 per cent ore bed 
(Jenkins’ bank 4 miles southeast of the stack) furnished the run¬ 
ning stock of the old Buckner furnace in Muhlenberg county, 
west Kentucky, south of Greenville.—A fossiliferous ore several 
feet thick, mixed with the other two kinds, was obtained on 
Lick creek ridges, two miles southeast. The want of capital 
and bad construction of the stack caused the abandonment of 
the furnace ; the location is a good one.—A 37 per cent “ black- 

1 Owen, vol. i. p. 60. 


9 Page 59. 


3 Idem. 


CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


723 


band ” ore “ 19 inches ” thick was struck 25 __ , , 

feet down Ford’s well, Pond creek, resting on en U ° 
black shale, and is the same bed no doubt as that above, and 
as a 31 per cent ore found between old Bucker iron works and 
Turner’s. It is possible therefore that a bed which seems to 
be persistent over a considerable area may be found workable 
at more than one point of its outcrop. 3 

Near the northern limits of Edmonson county, the 
shales of Nolin creek show several valuable beds of ore, distri¬ 
buted in the 60 or 80 feet of the upper part of the following 
section : 4 Ore at the top of the hills 6 inches ; shale 8 feet; 
middle bed of ore in 2 feet of ferruginous shales; shale 10 
feet; sandstone 20 feet; coal, locally ; place of the fossiliferous 
ore seen further north, but represented here by nodules in dark 
shale 10 feet; sandstone 18 feet; grey slate 1 foot; coal (main 
Nolin bed) 4 to 6 feet; nodular ore in sandy shales 20 feet the 
equivalent of the Conglomerate No. XII; coal 4 inches under 
which come the marly shales and limestones of the sub-carboni¬ 
ferous.—The lowest of the three deposits (neglecting the nodu¬ 
lar ore under the Nolin coal) is more earthy than the middle ore 
20 or 30 feet above it. There appears very little hope of these 
beds being profitably wrought. 


Into Indiana and Illinois extend the coal measures of west¬ 
ern Kentucky. Two furnaces run in southern Indiana; the 
Kichland (K 615) “ uses bog, block and limestone ores, chiefly 
the latter, costing $1 25 per ton at the tunnel head.” Indiana 
furnace (K 616) runs on what is called “ brown hematite,” 
which however must be the outcrop of a calcareous protocarbo¬ 
nate ore, for it contains enough lime to flux itself and yields but 
33 per cent of metal. A four-foot vein of coal underlies the 
premises. 

In Illinois, the Martha and Illinois furnaces (K 613, 614) be¬ 
tween the Ohio and Saline rivers, run upon the ores of the 
lower coal measures, honeycomb, pot and pipe. The ore banks 
of this and of the Illinois furnace were worked until they 
headed up between well defined walls of limestone, the ore fill- 

* Owen, vol. i. p. 140. 4 Vol. i* p* 164. 




724 


FART n.-DIVISION II. 


ing two distinct fissures running parallel to eacli other, with a 
uniform bearing north 15° east, one of which was 24 feet wide 
and worked to a depth of 60 or 70 feet, and the other 27^- feet 
wide and worked down 90 feet. This last supplies Illinois fur¬ 
nace. An analysis from an average specimen of the Martha 
furnace ore banks, yielded 80.00 per cent peroxide of iron 
= 56.02 iron. (See Dr. D. D. Owen’s Report to the S. C. and 
M. Co.) A ton of it required 200 bushels of coal (at 4 cents per 
bushel) with a blast from two iron O 2 cylinders 3 + 5 feet, and 
ran about 18 revolutions to the minute. 5 

In Dr. Norwood’s pamphlet report published in 1858, the coal 
measures of Illinois do not exhibit a single workable bed of iron 
ore. What iron does occur presents itself as a sulpliuret, inter- 
stratified with the coal shales and layers of coal, in lens-shaped 
masses between the layers, and in thin plates occupying vertical 
fissures crossing the beds. 

In Iowa, where we see a continuation of the great western 
coal area, the report of Prof. Hall, just published, dispels all the 
hopes once entertained of finding workable beds of iron ore. In 
the lowest division of the coal measures spread thinly over the 
southwestern portion of the State no beds of carbonate of iron 
can be discovered. 

In Missouri the same is true. Although Prof. Swallow esti¬ 
mates the thickness of the Coal Measures in this State at 1,070 5 
feet, his reports of 1855 show that they contain no ores. Dr. 
Shumard says “ We had reason to expect the existence of con¬ 
siderable quantities of iron in the coal measures ; but it has not 
been observed, in workable quantities, in a single locality in 
these rocks. 7 It seems as though the carbo-ferruginous muds de¬ 
scending the rivers of the Atlantic continent were unable to 
reach these western portions of the Carboniferous Sea. 8 


Thus far we have been speaking chiefly of the lower coal mea* 
sures. The Upper Coal Measures are far less rich in iron 

a Bulletin American Iron Association, 1858. Compare the Lead ores. 

6 Proceedings Aaner. Assoc. F. A. S. Baltimore, 1858 (Cambridge, 1859). 

7 Shumard, in Swallow, page 158. 

8 In Minnesota iron and coal are reported in abundance along Blue Earth river 
Amer. R. R. Jour., 1851, p. 805. But it is a mere report. 





CARBONATE ORES-COAL MEASURES. 


725 


than the lower. They too obey the law 
which seems to limit even what little of Fenns y lvani a. 
iron wealth they have to the eastern margin of the Carbo¬ 
niferous Sea. It is along the eastern outcrop of the Pitts¬ 
burg coal bed that we have almost the only remarkable 
deposit of carbonate of iron known at present high in the 
formation, and almost all that we know of it comes from Dr. 
Jackson’s report to Mr. Rogers condensed in the Third Annual 
Report of 1839 and embodied in the Final Report vol. ii, page 
504 and from 603 onwards. 9 The expression eastern outcrop of 
the Pittsburg bed is here used, because the small patches of this 
bed in the Ligonier, Somerset and Broadtop basins towards the 
east are all that is left of it over that wide interval, until it dips 
into the Anthracite coal basins of the Schuylkill country. 

The ore of the Pittsburg bed begins to appear as far north 
as Blairsville on the Conemaugh, as nodules of carbonate of iron 
and carbonate of lime in the shales (18 inches thick) beneath the 
coal. But no important quantity is seen until we pass to the 
south of the Loyalhanna head waters, the Sewickley and the 
Yougliiogheny river. In the region southwestward of the Red¬ 
stone creek where the great limestone deposits above the Pitts¬ 
burg bed take the place of the two large coal beds elsewhere 
occupying the same position,—a region therefore of unusual 
mutation in the times which followed the formation of the Pitts¬ 
burg coal,—there was a change in the condition of things of 
equally curious significance in the times which immediately pre¬ 
ceded its formation. Here it is that the ore bed is developed. It 
is not seen along the Yougliiogheny, where sections are numerous. 

On Redstone creek the ore varies from 2 to 8 inches over 
blue slate and under fire-clay (18 inches) under blue slate (4-J feet) 
under Pittsburg coal (7 feet) at Wynn’s bank. The ore is car¬ 
ried to Oliphant’s furnace from this and other numerous open- - 
ings between Redstone and George’s creeks. It comes out in 
blue fine grained compact roundish cakes, traversed by crystal¬ 
line white veins. South of the furnace the Pittsburg coal re¬ 
cedes from Chestnut Ridge and rises in the hills along its nar¬ 
row basin. South of George’s creek at Davis’s bank it contains 

9 It is necessary here to guard those who consult the writer’s map of Pennsylvania 
accompanying Prof. Rogers’s Final Report, against a gross geological error which was 
caused by its being engraved and colored in Edinburgh. The two principal limestone 
outcrops of the coal measures, it will be noticed, run together north of Blairsville, in¬ 
stead of running parallel in two separate blue lines along the western side of the Chest¬ 
nut Ridge into Virginia. 


726 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


pyrites and slate in flattened discs or plates. Across the Yip 
ginia line, half a mile, at Rubble’s bank, the ore lias been 
wrought for Duncan’s furnace. Between Redstone and George’s 
creeks, on the anticlinal axis on Cat’s and York’s runs the ore 
has been obtained at numerous banks. 

On the Monongahela, two miles above Port Royal there are 
ten bands of ore (the lower nodular) in 20 feet of shale beneath 
the Pittsburg coal. At Greenfield, some layers of ore 3 inches 
thick are seen in the run 20 feet below the coal. East of Browns¬ 
ville and three miles from the Rational road, one of the layers 
of the ten foot limestone under the coal contains nodules of ore. 
Three miles southwest of Carmicheltown nodules are seen under 
a coal which may perhaps be the next higher (Sewickley) bed. 
Large quantities of flattened balls are seen in the 20 foot shales 
under the coal upon Muddy creek. 

The second bed above the coal, the Waynesburg bed, shows 
on Laurel run which enters Ten-mile creek two miles below the 
town of Waynesburg a top slate hard and ferriferous, contain¬ 
ing beds of rounded pebbles, and flags of pyritous carbonate of 
iron an inch thick, of silvery lustre. 1 

The general formula given in the Third Annual Report 8 may 
be condensed as follows :— 

Pittsburg coal. 

Limestone, k, dark blue and black layers, 1-1-J feet 
thick, separated by shale, the main body of 
shale above and of limestone below; black 
layers ferruginous and bituminous. Shale full 
of iron ore along the base of Chestnut Ridge, in 
George and Union Townships, Fayette county. 

Ore, carbonate of iron, in 3 layers ; first, 2 feet, second, 

4 feet, third, 7 feet below the coal. At Browns¬ 
ville and Connelsville a thin coal bed separates 
the two lower layers of ore, . . . .25 feet 

Shale and Sand; grey slate, thin sands, soft shales; 
near Pittsburg a building stone; ripple marks, 

reeds; deposit universal,.30 “ 

Limestone, j, dark blue, weathering yellow ; hard, 
heavy, square, oblong debris along the Monon¬ 
gahela and Youghiogheny, . . . . 4 . « 

Red and Yellow Shale ..12 “ 


J Final Report, vol. ii., page 650. 


3 Page 87. 


CARBONATE ORES-PERMIAN SYSTEM. 


727 


It will be seen from the above description _ , 

how very local this ore deposit really is, 3 and enns Y vania. 
how little it disturbs the rule that the opening of the great coal 
era was almost the culmination of the exhibition of the carbon¬ 
ate ores. 


The gap which formerly was thought to exist between the 
Palaeozoic and Mesozoic ages,—between the Coal Measures as 
the close of the days of ancient fossil life and ocean deposits, and 
the New Red and Jura formations,—after being tilled up 
roughly by the discovery of the missing intermediate rocks in 
the Uralian regions of Russia, in the ancient kingdom of Perm, 
has been more nicely joined by the latest discoveries in the 
United States. Rocks which are evidently the direct continua 
tion of the coal measures upwards, in Illinois, and in Kansas, 
have furnished unmistakable Permian fossils. And other rocks 
upon the Atlantic seaboard, which are as evidently immediate, 
conformable predecessors of the Lias and Oolite, contain mag¬ 
nesian limestone, 4 and animal remains over which there is still 
indeed dispute, but which approach if they do not fully accord 
with a Permian type. 5 It is not certain however that the con¬ 
tinuity is as yet obtained unbroken. The top of the eastern coal 
measures ends horizontally in air, one or two thousand feet 
above the Pittsburg coal; while the bottom of the New Red is 
buried in a granitoid trough at a topographical level 3000 feet 
lower, and in geographical distance 300 miles off. These upper¬ 
most barren coal measures of southwestern Pennsylvania and 
northwestern Virginia should cover the geological interval 
apparently occupied by the 820 feet of so-called Permian rocks 


3 Carbonate of iron occurs under the supposed representation of the Pittsburg coal 
in the Salisbury basin in Somerset county, but it has never been wrought and is proba¬ 
bly of no value. 

4 See Dr. Hitchcock’s book on the footprints of the Connecticut river sandstone, and 
Dr. Emmons’s paper on the Chemical Constitution of certain Members of the Chatham 
series in the valley of Deep river, North Carolina, page 230, Proceedings Amer. Ass. 
F. A. S. 1858, Baltimore meeting. The presence of magnesia in great quantities at a 
fixed horizon, is as good a basis of temporal comparison, as the outspread of rolled 
pebbles, coal, any particular metallic precipitation, or any type of animal life, along a 
fixed horizon. 

6 It would be dangerous to come within the wind of the Thecodont debate. Enough 
to say that when Leidy shows that the Mososaur is as much an acrodont as a thecodont 
and that Emmons’s thecodont introduces still a fifth idea of dentation, this debate ceases 
to affect very seriously the question of the existence of Permian rocks in America. 



728 


PART If.-DIVISION II. 


in Kansas, over which again Ilawn, Swallow, Meek and Hay¬ 
den measure 420 feet of Trias rocks up to the base of the Cre¬ 
taceous. But Hayden’s explorations of the Upper Mississippi 
and especially his determinations of the Judith river rocks, show 
how non conterminous and intermitted, although conformable, the 
later strata are, and thus throw doubt upon the actual con¬ 
tinuity of the apparently conformable older strata. In the 
region of the west where steep dips are local phenomena there 
is the widest room for a deception of this kind. It is not cer¬ 
tain that a foot of Permian rocks intervenes between the coal 
measures and the Trias rocks of Kansas. Neither is the palaeon¬ 
tological evidence indubitable. Up to the end of August 1858, 
the fossils found in the so-called Trias were few and imperfect 
and resembled both Triassic and Liassic forms; while the mass 
of rocks called Permian, divided as they were into a lower and 
an upper stage, showed unmistakable permian types, but also 
contained carboniferous fossils throughout. The lower stage had 
yielded 57 permian species and 15 carboniferous species, but the 
carboniferous individuals were ten times more abundant than 
the permian. The upper stage had yielded some 20 permian 
and but a single carboniferous species. Certainly in this phase 
of the discussion it is a misnomer to call the lower stage per- 
mian , filled as it is with carboniferous fossils, and only begin¬ 
ning, so to speak, to try its hand at many other different forms, 
for the benefit of the succeeding age. For the same reason we 
must grant the propriety of calling the upper stage permian , 
only stipulating that its absolute synchronism with the permian 
of Europe can never be demonstrated by mere fossils. Litholo¬ 
gists are too facile in yielding their subscription without caveat 
to the axioms of chronological geology as these have been 
drawn up by the paleontologists. Me know too much of 
colonies and local life disturbances to be misled. The proba¬ 
bility is that we have permian rocks even in northwestern 
Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania, as well as in the west; 
or what will as well deserve the name through fossils. But 
until some horizon of discontinuity be well made out, it is wiser 
to carry up the coal measures as high as they will go, and call 
the permian fossils which they contain colonial and prophetic. 

The point of practical interest here however is the fact that in 
the Permian, or Triassic, or Liassic or Oolitic rocks, whichever 


CARBONATE ORES-TERTIARY AGE. 


729 


they may be, of the Connecticut river valley, the . . 

1STewark-Norristown valley, the Richmond, Dan 
river and Deep river formations, there are coal beds and iron 
ores. The only places where these coal beds have been found 
of workable size are near Richmond, in Virginia—at Egypt on 
Deep river in the centre—and on Dan river at the northern 
border of North Carolina. The only place where iron ore of 
any apparent value has been mined, or in fact discovered, is at 
Egypt, where a bed of so-called black-band ore lies in contact 6 
with the large coal bed of that little, narrow and uptilted basin. 
But the ore must be practically worthless if the excessive 
quantity of sulphur etc, which an analysis by Gentli exhibits, 
shall prove to characterize the whole bed. It is in this double 
coal and iron ore deposit that multitudes of fish-teeth are found, 
recalling to our remembrance those (of a very different form 
however) in the 9th and lltli coal beds of the Kentucky carbo¬ 
niferous system. 


Long subsequent to these embarrassing deposits, and subse¬ 
quent to the cretaceous rocks, at a time when the continent was 
w T ell formed and only the Atlantic seaboard was still submerged, 
during the Tertiary age, the favorable conditions for pre¬ 
cipitating carbonate of iron in beds recurred again. 

In Hartford county Maryland, Bine Grove ridge is 
based on a large body of argillaceous carbonate of iron like that 
of the coal measures, in the form of nodules imbedded in a stiff 
blue clay of what Ducatel in his report of 1838 calls “ an upper 
secondary” formation, that is of tertiary age. The nodules are 
sometimes long and fantastically connected like irregular 
potatoes, compact, concentric, sometimes nucleated, growing 
lighter towards the centre, and sometimes liollow r and lined with 
minute velvet-like crystals of hydrated oxide of iron and car¬ 
bonate and sulphate of lime. These latter nodules yield from 
40 to 50 per cent of iron in the furnace. Large quantities of 
them are raised from the region on both sides of Patapsco river 
in Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties from its mouth at 
Fort McHenry to the deposit on Deep run almost contiguous to 
the primary rocks. 7 


c The ore bed separates the two benches of coal. 


7 Ducatel, 1S38. p. 4, 10. 



730 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


Ferruginous jasper in clay, a decomposed outcrop of horn* 
blende rock, is cut by the Baltimore and Philadelphia railroad 
near Elkton at Lonergen’s cut through a spur of Chestnut ridge. 
At Flint hill near Elkton such ore was tried which proved too 
flinty to use. Near Northeast village several tons of good ore 
was used by Principio furnace, 8 the only deposit of any conse¬ 
quence known in this kind of rock. 9 

8 Ducatel’s Report, 1837, p. 15. 

8 On the English North Downs are certain posteocene deposits of sand, gravel and 
ironstone, 20 feet thick at Vico Hill as examined by M. Prestwich. Their ironstones are 
dispersed about the Downs. Some of the gritty ferruginous masses are full of bivalve 
and univalve shells of at least thirty genera, referable to Upper Tertiary age. Similar 
beds between Calais and Boulogne and on top of Cassel hill near Dunkirk and in Bel¬ 
gium, all of the age of the Crag-beds, show the wide extent of this deposit, and may 
bring it into line with even the tertiary deposits of ironstone on the shores of the Chesa¬ 
peake and Delaware bays, since the gulf stream may have flowed then very much as 
it does now. 


BOG 


CHAPTER V. 

THE BOG ORES. 

Bog ore is a deposit of every age upon tlie actual at, 

the time. In the present age the process assumes tvo pEncipa 1 
forms, the dome and the layer. The former is a mechanical, the 
latter an organic process. The former takes place at the issues 
where water springs from ferriferous rocks; the latter at the 
bottom ol peat bogs. Throughout the coal-measure areas of the 
west, where the rocks are outspread for thousands of square 
leagues in nearly horizontal strata, and their edges exposed upon 
the sinuous and terraced slopes of innumerable valleys, in 
alternate bands of slate and sandstone, coal, limestone, iron and 
clay, the waters, filtering out between these rocks in rows of 
fountains, deposit the peroxide of iron in those moist places 
which ferns and mosses most affect, and thus in course of time 
domes of wet spongy elastic bog arise, composed of an intimate 
admixture of three elements,—the dead and living stems and 
twigs of vegetation,—fine sandy clay,—and the peroxide of iron 
of the spring water. These domes flatten as their bases expand, 
and sometimes cover a quarter of an acre of the ground, where 
that is favorable to their reception ; for this purpose is required 
an even, broad, and very gently sloping terrace in front of an 
escarpment of ferruginous sandstone based on clay or coal, or of 
some considerable bed of iron ore. When drained and dried 
these spongy masses make a favorite fluxing ore for the charcoal 
furnaces in their neighborhood ; but owing to the sulphur they 
commonly contain make other neutral ores run red-short, and 
therefore should be mixed only with-cold short sand ores. By 
one of those happy adaptations which excite our pleasurable 
admiration for the laws which govern the material world, these 
bog deposits fortunately are most common in regions which 
exhibit heavy silicious ores of cold-short temper. 

But ore of another kind is deposited upon the white clay or 
white sand floor of peat bogs, lakes, and swamps of every kind, 
in tertiary and other low and gravelly parts of the earth’s sur- 


732 


PART II.—DIVISION II. 


face. In eastern Massachusetts the oldest furnaces were built 
to smelt such ores. In Hew Jersey and Delaware they have 
been wrought for many years. The southern shore of Lake 
Erie is lined with furnaces built on deposits of this order. In 
true peat bogs, a cake or pan of peroxide of iron is found at the 
bottom, and every tree trunk is dyed black with it. The waters 
which feed these bogs bring into them from the ferruginous 
sand hills by which they are inlocked enough of iron to supply 
certain microscopic animals with the material they require for 
their ferro-silicious shields, and these upon the death of the 
little creatures fall in a tine powder to the bottom of the bog or 
are carried into the jDores of the timber it contains. Lyell 
figures on page 695 of his Principles (London, 1847) the thread¬ 
like Gaillonella ferruginea which Ehrenburg 
discovered in the peat bog ores of the marshes 
around Berlin. 1 In the United States there is 
comparatively little real peat; it is chiefly 
found on the Hew England seaboard ; our 
extremes of temperature are supposed by some 2 to be unfavor¬ 
able to its growth, but the lay and nature of the surface are of 
more importance to its formation. Our muck swamps are 
rather a wash of dead, than a growth of living vegetation, 
which, when exposed, becomes not a hard insoluble mass like 
peat, but a rich and crumbling mould. And the deposit of iron 
is essentially affected by this circumstance. 

That the iron of bog ore comes in from the surrounding rocks, as does the salt of 
all salt lakes with their inflowing waters which can only escape by evaporation, is 
evident per se ; but an additional proof is furnished by the fact that in some bogs 
copper replaces iron. The London Mining Journal 3 describes a copper turf, dug 
northwest of Dolgelly, the result of drainage from quartz cupreous rocks. The bed 
of dead grass and rotten oak and hazel wood, 18 to 24 inches deep charged with 
copper, overlay a sheet of local gravel a few inches thick, under which was another 
layer of peat. Some of the lower portions of the upper layer were rich in the 
metal, as incrustations of the green carbonate. Iron pyrites also abounded on the 
stones. The leaves of plants and surface of nuts were coated with a thin pellicle of 
bright metallic copper, 4 and the nut kernels were converted into copper. Alternate 
sheets of woody fibre and metallic copper were exhibited in sections of the trees. 
When the turf was slowly roasted and its ashes used as ore £20,000 of profits were 
declared in a single year. 

In Chapter I. I have suggested the possible origin of some of the great primary 

1 See also Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs, vol. i. part iii. p. 402. 

2 See Prof. T. P. Norton of New Haven in the Albany Cultivator. 

3 page 776. Nov. 15, 1856. 4 Compare the fossil ore of V. 



THE BOG ORES. 


733 


iron ore beds from beds of brown hematite, perhaps in the form of dome-shaped 
bog ores. It is true that we can conceive of this formation as happening on the 
ancient surfaces as a rare occurrence owing to the accumulations of sand rock 
(now granite) over such ore beds, accumulations which seem to demand submerg¬ 
ence. But the suggestion involved brown hematite deposits of every variety of 
place and form, of mixture mechanical and chemical; and to say the least it is a 
curious coincidence, that apatite or phosphate of lime characterizes both the great 
primary ore beds of the Huronian system, and the bog ores of the present day. 
Forschammer, following Ebelman in experiments to reproduce the mineral kingdom 
in the laboratory, with heat and such solvents as boracic acid, chloride of calcium, 
sodium, magnesium etc. was led to take up first the manufacture of apatite, by 
observing how sea water always held a small percentage of phosphate of lime and a 
smaller percentage of fluoride of calcium. Failing to make apatite in the wet way, 
and remembering that apatite occurs not only in metamorphic rocks but in lavas, 
he tried heat. Melting phosphate of lime with chloride of sodium, he obtained by 
slow cooling a cellular mass full of long crystals, which, when treated with water 
and then acetic acid, remained an apatite of 3.069 spec, grav scratching fluor spar. 
The Scandinavian magnetic ore and its bog ores contain apatite, but although 
Forschammer imagined it possible that the magnetic was originally bog, it is evi¬ 
dent that much if not all of the bog is simply the drainage of the magnetic ore 
beds. This however offers no impediment to the conclusion that more ancient bog 
ores were the originals of the magnetic beds ; the elements being transposed or 
crystallized in the first instance and transferred or deposited in the second. The 
present bog ore contains besides oxide of iron, phosphoric acid, lime, silica, titanic 
acid, and carbonaceous organic substances. The latter ingredient might correspond 
to the remarkable bituminous substance of the magnetite beds, and the silica, lime 
and manganese might be supposed to form, with oxide of iron, the numerous com¬ 
pounds of the amphibole series occurring in the magnetite beds, while apatite and 
titanium compounds might also be derived from the constituents of bog iron ore. 
For the purpose of ascertaining the behavior of bog iron ore when melted with 
chloride of sodium, a direct experiment was made. The cooled mass presented 
cavities which, when the chloride of sodium was dissolved out, were found to con¬ 
tain apatite crystals. The ore itself had become black, strongly magnetic, and had 
acquired such a hardness as scarcely to be scratched bv steel, together with a per¬ 
fectly conchoidal fracture. In the larger cavities the mass was covered with small 
sharply-defined crystals, which, when magnified were found to be regular octahe¬ 
drons. The ore was, therefore, actually converted into magnetite, and the phos¬ 
phoric acid had separated as apatite from the oxide of iron. In a comparative 
experiment with bog iron ore alone it did not show any sign of fusion or crystalli¬ 
zation; the color, though darkened, was still brown. 6 

Bog ores must have been deposited in all ages, and if 

they could he recognized with certainty ought to he so classified, 
in order of their age. But as this is impossible, the only classi¬ 
fications at hand are one purely geographical and one geologi¬ 
cally geographical. The latter will be here preferred, taking the 
regions of bog ores in the order of the age of the rocks which 
form the surface. 

5 Edinburgh Philos. Journal, quoted by Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1856, p. 330. 


734: 


PART IT.-DIVISION If. 


The Primary regions of the United States furnish to the 
surface no bog ores worth recounting because their iron ores 
within the surface have undergone most or all of the changes of 
which they are susceptible, and are neither soluble nor change¬ 
able. A peroxide under ground will not form a peroxide above 
ground by the ordinary processes of weathering or leaching ex¬ 
cept in peculiar circumstances. But a more stringent reason for 
the scarcity of surface bogs in the primary regions is, that there 
the rocks are usually steeply inclined and much disturbed; so 
that the rock waters have no chance to flow for furlongs along 
an iron-bearing stratum ere they issue at the spring. The bog 
ore therefore that exists in primary regions is of another kind, 
described in Chapter II; formed within fissures, or in pools, or 
in the veins themselves. 

In the Silurian regions the same case continues; small op¬ 
portunity has been afforded to form bogs. But some occur, lor 
instance, along the outcrop of the Upper Silurian (or Lower 
Helderberg) limestone VI. 

In the Devonian regions, where broad synclinals of Upper 
Helderberg limestone, cement layers, black lingula flags, etc. 
spread out nearly in horizontal posture, bog ores are somewhat 
more frequent; but are so subordinate to the brown hematite 
outcrops of the carbonate ore beds that they have been suffi¬ 
ciently alluded to in Chapter II. Where the Devonian strata 
reappear upon the northern and western sides of the coal areas, 
in New York, Ohio and central Kentucky, bog ores appear with 
them. In New York they have not been used ; but along Lake 
Erie a number of old furnaces still exist and one or two continue 
to make iron, as may be seen by reference to the Guide, IT 467 
et seq. These furnaces made each 30 tons of metal a week from 
ore “ found in the swales and swamps near and generally to the 
north of a ridge of land which was probably once the shore of 
Lake Erie, extending, with now and then an interval, along 
from the west boundary of the State of New York to the Huron 
river in Ohio. 6 The want of wood for charcoal consequent upon 

6 Of Wood county, Mr. Briggs says in his report of 1838 (Mather, p. 118), it has no bog 
ore ; a very little was discovered one or two miles from Gilead. Large quantities occur 
in Lucas county four or five miles west of Maumee city.—Crawford county has a few de¬ 
posits of bog ore, intermixed with sand and pebbles, near swamps. On the left bank of 
the Sandusky near McCutchensville masses weighing several hundred weight are found. 
In the southern part of the Indian Reserve a bed of a foot thick underlies a peat bog. 


THE BOG ORES. 


735 


the clearing up of the land has occasioned the stoppage of most 
of these works,” 7 etc. This so called former lake shore is one 
of the bench-outcrops of the Devonian formation and sweeps 
round and flattens away in northwestern Ohio and northern In¬ 
diana. 8 In this latter State two or three furnaces, and one or 
two in Michigan sometimes still run upon the same bog ores. 

In Southern Ohio, the Brush creek bog ores of Adams 
county lie in basins of limited and irregular extent, on the upper 
strata of the cliff limestone, and originate in the decomposition 
of nodules of pyrites in the rock, sulphate of lime flowing off and 
peroxide of iron remaining, and sometimes inclosing the sulphate 
of lime. Brush creek furnace on Cedar creek (south side of sur¬ 
vey 2,615) built by Paul & McNickel of Pittsburg in 1811 ex¬ 
hausted the old beds and was abandoned and sold to Stewart 
and Company who opened new beds and blew in again in 1837. 
The ore is cellular brown hematite, the cells filled with fine 
plastic yellow ochre, outcropping along the cliffs of limestone 15 
feet below the top of the cliff (150 feet above the creek), be¬ 
tween rough and sandy layers of limestone abounding in cya- 
thophylla and large corals. Nodular fragments of the limestone 
occur in the ore bed with calcareous and silicious sand. The 
ore banks at Steam furnace 9 are exhausted but the furnace con¬ 
tinued to blow on ore from a distance in 1838. Marble 1 fur¬ 
nace was even then deserted. 2 The other two soon obeyed the 
same destiny, overpowered by the new Hanging Rock region 
manufacture. 

Brush creek forge Adams county Ohio, is on the west side of 
the creek about 5 miles a little south of east from West Union. 
It was blooming up Brush creek furnace pig in 1838 when 
Locke reported. 3 


Approaching the Coal Measure areas and ascending the 
Alleghany Mountain Wall capped by Conglomerate resting on 

7 Mr. John Wilkinson of Buffalo; in Notes of Bulletin of Amer. Iron Assoc., page 1G6. 

» Table K GIG.4, etc. above. 

9 On a run at the head of a chasm through the cliff limestone, near Brush creek and 
nearly due east of Jacksonville.—(Briggs in Mather, p. 255.) 

i Towards the Highland county line, on the road betwen West Union and Locust 
Grove, on Brush creek, which here flows on the flint limestone. It was owned in 1837 
by Mr. Summers.—(Briggs in Mather, p. 266.) 

a Locke in Mather, 1838, p. 252. 3 Mather, 1838, p. 250. 




736 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


sub-carboniferous red shale XI in the north and shales and lime 
stone XI in the south and west, with dips so gentle as scarcely 
to be measurable and deep ravines cutting far back between 
precipitous forest-clad walls sheeted with fallen blocks and local 
gravel drift, w T e see an interminable line of iron bogs separated 
by intervals of a few yards or of a furlong or two and stretch¬ 
ing from the New’ York to the Tennessee state line. Most of 
them are insignificantly small and inaccessibly worthless; some 
few are of large size and here and there one has been excavated 
and smelted up with the ores below. 

Back from the Alleghany mountain in the Coal Area it¬ 
self, the Sub-carboniferous rises again to day in the north on the 
backs of five or six great anticlinals, three of which, the Xegro 
mountain, Laurel hill and Chesnut ridge, crossing the Pennsyl¬ 
vania state line into Maryland and Virginia, spread out the red 
ore shales of XI (as has been described in Chapter IV), and fur¬ 
nish in great numbers the finest instances of bog ore deposits w r e 
possess. One of the most remarkable of these is to be seen on 
the flank of Laurel hill in Fayette county east of Ligonier, where 
four acres are covered to a depth of from 4 to 20 feet, the bot¬ 
tom layers being dark hard concreted ore and the rest a pile of 
alternate hard and soft sheets. Many more like it, but not all 
of them so extensive as this, cover the gentle slopes of this and 
the opposite mountain, all of them issuing from the shales of the 
ore of XI. 4 And in the south where fractures take the place of 
anticlinal waves, the repeated outcrops of XI and XII repeat 
the ranges of bog ores. 

Along the western outcrop of the Sub-carboniferous 
through Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, sinuous, dentated, or 
rather pinnated like a fringe of fern leaves as it is, the exhibi¬ 
tions of bog ore are unlimited in number. They are however 
too near the outcrop of the limestone carbonates and brown 
hematite ores of the outcrops in the coal measures to be much 
regarded or often touched. In fact the precipices, at the foot of 
which they necessarily are formed, make of that whole belt of 
country an irreclaimable wilderness with a labyrinth of ever¬ 
lasting hunting-grounds into which no wagon can come, in 
which no iron-works can be sustained, except when the inter- 

4 Hodge and Lesley, Fifth Annual Report of Rogers, p. 96. 


THE BOG ORES. 


737 


f 

national railroads and the large rivers open it along a few nar¬ 
row cross-zones ot improvement and slowly growing population. 
In front of it stretches the narrow belt of Devonian lowland, 
without the Devonian ore, and back of it the forest area of the 
Lower Coal measures, through which the iron manufacture 
slowly creeps and spreads from its few centres outwards like a 
lichen on a rock. 

On the northern outcrop alone, in northwestern Pennsyl¬ 
vania, have the bog ores of the Conglomerate and XI been 
wrought to any extent. The old furnaces on the head waters of 
the Alleghany river in northwestern Pennsylvania trusted for 
stock to the bog ores of the Lower Coal measures, which are 
numerous and extensive along Hemlock and French creeks and 
their branches. Upon Hemlock creek 6 3 miles from its mouth 
one is seen covering 4 acres and 14 feet thick in the midst. 
Three others on Horse creek, 6 miles below, cover 3 acres each. 
Three miles from Horse creek furnace a bank of hard ore- 
nodules 6 to 10 inches thick, yellow inside and with a thin black 
crust, imbedded in shales, show the origin of these bogs. Small 
deposits occur on Sandy creek at the furnace, issuing from the 
ore of XI under the conglomerate. This is the fruitful source 
of the large and numerous bogs of the Chestnut ridge and 
Laurel hill slopes in southwestern Pennsylvania and western Vir¬ 
ginia. The chief bog ores of the Clarion river also come out 
from under the conglomerate. 

It is in the Cretaceous, Tertiary and Drift Formations 

of the Atlantic seaboard that the principal useful bog ores exist. 
The surface of New England, sculptured at a very early date 
(subsequent to the coal era), has been overlaid by northern 
drift to the depth of many yards and fathoms of sand and gravel. 
A new surface is the result, of a peculiar character, not chan¬ 
nelled longitudinally in parallel lines like other parts of the 
land, or in all directions like still other parts, but hollowed out 
irregularly all over, (like the sandy bottom of a pool covered 
with innumerable tadpole nests touching and limiting each 
other,) with shallow drainage valleys irregularly connecting the 
whole. Hence the numberless ponds of New England, all 
of them surrounded by low gravel hills, up through which 
the original surface rocks occasionally protrude. Into these 

6 Final Report, p. 562. 

47 


738 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


ponds from the surrounding gravel hills trickle perpetual sub¬ 
sidies of iron to be deposited upon the bottom. The earliest 
furnaces of the United States, in the neighborhood of Plymouth, 
used these ores, dug when the ponds were dry, or around the 
margin when the waters fell. 8 Small furnaces and poor ore, 
they served their day and are forgotten; obliterated by the 
overrush of two commercial iron deluges, one from the Eng¬ 
lish importers, and the other from the anthracite manufac¬ 
turers. 

In New Jersey, over the whole southern moiety of which 
the ferruginous Green-sand and overlying Tertiary formations 
spread, sulphatic or red-short bog ores abound in all its low 
grounds, along the foot of hills, in swamps, and wherever waters 
issue to the air arid cannot flow off at once but escape only by 
evaporation. The Marl, containing phosphate of iron also, 
gives origin to bogs of phosphatic or cold-short iron ore. “ Two 
great deposits, incomparably the largest in the State, border the 
principal tributaries of the Little Egg Harbor river. The most 
western of these is connected with the waters of Atsion river 
and most of its branches, extending from near the sources of 
these streams in a tolerably wide belt southeastward to Landing 
creek—about twenty miles—its average breadth three miles. 
The eastern tract lies along the Tulpeliaukin or Wading river 
and its several branches, and covers an area quite as extensive 
as the former, but the deposit of ore is greatly inferior in abund¬ 
ance to that on the Atsion river particularly in the neighbor¬ 
hood of the Atsion iron-works.” The several minor deposits 
are confined to the limits of the marl region ; one on Talman’s 
branch of the Hancocus ; another on the south branch near its 
junction; another on Manasquan river near Georgia in Mon¬ 
mouth county; others on the Manalapan and Machaponix 
branches of South river. 7 

The Atsion river flowing through extensive cedar swamps 
from an upper country of ferruginous sands (leached and 
bleached white at the surface) deposits in its ponds three kinds 
of iron bog, “ loam,” “ seed ” and “ massive ” ore, which is dug 
chiefly from the shallow coves around the swamps, in tanks of 
eight or ten feet square with dykes left standing between. The 

9 See Bulletin Am. Iron Asso. notes 4 etc. on p. 78. 

7 Rogers’s Report of New Jersey, 1840, p. 798. 


THE BOG ORES. 


i 


739 


massive ore forms the bottom layer, and the loam the top; but 
sometimes only one kind is met with. The loam ore is the first 
production, being a mixture of vegetable mould and oxide of 
iron, at first quite soft, but afterwards, when the iron comes to 
be in excess and begins to segregate and crystallize in nodules, 
growing harder, and finally settling to the bottom as a honey¬ 
comb mass of crystallized peroxide, its cavities filled up with 
yellow clay. The “ young ” pulverulent ore is of course most 
fusible. The process is so active that stumps and trunks of trees 
lose all their vegetable matter and are converted into solid iron 
ore with every line and feature perfectly preserved. 

The following analyses show the presence of sand and clay 


brought in together 

with the iron: 





Perox. F. 

Insoluble. 

Water. 

Alumina. 

Organic. 

Seed ore 

66.10 

20.53 

12.54 

.66 

— 

Fresh bog 

68.90 

14.00 

14.03 

2.37 

— 

Honeycomb 

76.35 

9.30 

12.75 

.23 

— 

Honeycomb 

67.78 

18.54 

8.70 

trace 

5.00 


Amount of metallic iron, 45.83, 47.71, 52.94, 47.00. 

The whole Green-sand marl formation is in fact an iron ore 
deposit thirty feet thick composed one-half of silica, one-quarter 
of jqrotmti&Q of iron, one-eighth of potash, and two-sixteenths of 
alumina and of w T ater, (48.45, 24,31, 12.01, G.30 and 8.40,) with 
traces of lime and magnesia. 8 The same is true of the Green¬ 
sand of Europe except that in England magnesia replaces pot¬ 
ash. 9 It is no wonder then that the drainage and leakage of 


8 Three Analyses of 
Grains of Green Sand, 

(1.) 

(2.) 

(3.) 

Three Analyses of Grains 
of Green Sand. 

(1.) 

(2.) 

Soluble silica. 

45.510 

50.010 

41.729 

Phosphoric acid. 

0.993 

0.628 

Protoxide of iron . 

21.134 

21.120 

16.627 

Sulphuric acid. 

1.129 

0.430? 

Alumina. 

7.960 

7.368 

5.929 

Carbonic acid. 

0.563 

0.000 

Magnesia. 

2.460 

2.866 

2.938 

Insoluble silica (sand).... 

0.850 

0.402 

Potash . 

6.748 

7.370 

6.066 

Water. 

9.110 

9.474 

Lime. 

3.842 

0.312 

8.026 





(3.) 

7.356 

1.005 

1.383 

0.909 

7.688 


An examination of the preceding analyses will show that the soluble silica, protoxide 
of iron, alumina, magnesia, potash and water, are nearly the same, in quantity, in all the 
specimens, while the other constituents are extremely variable. It seems a legitimate 
conclusion that the grains of green-sand are made up of the constituents mentioned 
above, as being constant; and the close resemblance shown between the three speci¬ 
mens, when compared in this way, gives satisfactory evidence that the green-sand is a 
definite chemical compound.— Cook's Report in Third Report of New Jersey , page 66. 


Composition as calcu¬ 
lated from the Analyses. 

(1.) 

(2.) 

(3.) 

Composition as calcu¬ 
lated from the Analyses. 

(1.) 

(2.) 

Silioft ... - - 

48.977 

50.923 

51.532 

Magnesia. 

2.647 

2.918 

Protoxide of iron.. 

22.744 

21.504 

20.533 

Potash. 

7.262 

7.505 

Alumina. 

8.566 

7.508 

7.322 

Water. 

9.804 

9.647 


( 8 .) 

8-628 

7.491 

9.494 


v Rogers, New Jersey, p. 205. 































740 


rART II. - DIVISION n. 


many centuries should have produced immense hogs of peroxide 
wherever this Tertiary formation appears above the present level 
of the Atlantic. But the principal source of the bog deposit is 
the porous layer of yellow ferruginous sand lying upon the 
Green-sand marl, kept always distended with water which it 
dispenses to the Green-sand marl under it, dissolving out its 
fossil shells and replacing them with casts of peroxide of iron. 
But unfortunately for the iron-maker the water does not stop 
here, but continues down not only through Green-sand, but 
through or along the layers of dark-blue astringent clays which 
alternate with the Green-sand, and underlie it, and alternate with 
the Potter’s clay beds underneath it. These alum beds contain 
sulphate of alumina and sulphate of iron, and yield them to the 
w’aters, which deposit them among the other constituents of the 
ore, much to its disadvantage; for its porous, powdery state 
prevents the usual cure for sulphur, namely, stacking in the 
open air, because the peroxide of iron itself would also wash 
away. Bog ore should not be dug long before using. Its iron 
therefore is necessarily hot-short and chiefly good for casting. 

In the State of Delaware bog ores have been deposited in 
many places by chalybeate springs issuing from a sandy and 
clayey yellow ferruginous loam of Tertiary age forming mounds 
of ore through which the springs still continue to flow. These 
springs however actually issue in many cases from the sub¬ 
jacent blue clay which must therefore be fissured to allow their 
passage from the yellow loam above. This leaching process has 
been going on so long that much of the sand has been deprived 
of its iron. 

The principal localities in Sussex county of tertiary rock ore 
are Collins’s bank on Green meadow branch of Deep creek; a 
bank on Green branch, ten miles west of Millsborough, in balls 
and nodules, yielding ball ore ; one on Burton’s branch a mile 
west of Millsborough, yielding cold-short ore and one on Little 
creek near Laurel. 

The Iron Hill is an outlying knob of these ferriferous sands 
near the head waters of White-clay creek in the northern part 
of the State, towering above the plain, a mass of clay, sand and 
gravel covered with boulders of ironstone and ferruginous 
quartz, spoiled by exposure. The ore mine at the top forty or 
fifty feet deep shows nodules of chestnut-brown, hard, tough 


TIIE BOG ORES. 


741 


argillo-silicious ore, inclosed in oclire and sometimes in a coat 
ot black oxide of manganese, scattered throughout irregular 
strata of white, red, yellow and deep blue plastic clay and argil¬ 
laceous loam. 

The most remarkable beds of sub-bog ore are situated a few 
miles northwest of Georgetown, near the sources of the waters 
flowing west, on elevated level lands, deposited in broad and 
shallow basins underneath a stratum of black mud mould. This 
kind of ore is either solid, gravelly or loamy in its structure, and 
these kinds are mixed in manufacturing iron. The solid ore 
forms the bed of the marsh, from 6 to 18 inches thick, hard, 
tough, brown, resinous in lustre, unevenly conclioidal in frac¬ 
ture, often cellular, and yielding on Analysis: Peroxide of 
iron 80, Water 15, Silica 5, Alumina a trace. It is therefore 
almost a pure hydrated peroxide, yielding when raw 55-J- per 
cent of iron and when roasted nearly 66 per cent. The gravelly 
kind consists apparently of the above, broken up into nut size 
and disseminated through a yellow loam, but is in fact a similar 
sheet of ore arrested in its formation by a want of sufficient iron 
in the loam or a want of time to carry out the process. The 
teamy kind is simply a yellow ochre or ferruginous clay. 1 Since 
the elevation of the Tertiary Atlantic coast the drainage from 
the surface through these sands and clays into the lower valleys 
have produced chalybeate springs and the dome-shaped bog ores 
already described. 

The raising of this ore in any quantities commenced in 1814, 
and up to 1841 it was estimated that 200,000 tons had been 
mined, of which 190,000 tons were exported from the State “ in¬ 
troducing,” as the State geologist facetiously expresses it, “ not 
less than 600,000 dollars of capital into the State.” A State 
that exports its raw material feeds other people’s children and 
impoverishes its own. Had these 190,000 tons been wrought 
upon the spot, one-half the freight would have, been saved the 
world, and 80,000 x $25 or $1,600,000 of capital been created in 
the State by the first step of the process, to say nothing of the 
consequences. 

In Maryland, in Virginia, and, in fact, the tide water country 
of every southern State, these ores occur and might be smelted. 

Brown hematite beds, ochres etc. occur in the formation of 

1 Booth’s Memoir, Dover, 1841, p. 105, 87, 43. 


742 


PART II.-DIVISION II. 


gravel, sand and clay, through which the waters of the primary 
region back of Baltimore and Havre de Grace find their way 
by large arms into the Chesapeake bay. The principal beds of 
brown hematite are contiguous to the primary limestones and 
probably originate from them. Ten miles west of Baltimore one 
such deposit supplied Hampton furnace for seventy years be¬ 
fore it was exhausted. Others have been opened nearer to the 
city. Lignite exceedingly sulphurous occurs in these same 
sands. 3 

It was upon these contiguous deposits to the sea that the 
first Virginia settlers made their first essays to supply them¬ 
selves with metal; essays as important then in the world's eye 
and to history as the grandest steps of our anthracite iron making 
seem to us. Thus various types of force and skill beget, suc¬ 
ceed, and bury up each other in the many colored layers of 
human history, as successive types of organic life have sup¬ 
planted each other in the long ages of geology. 


s Ducatel, 1838, p. 11. 


DIVISION III. 


IRON AS AN AMERICAN MANUFACTURE. 


CHAPTER L 

BURDEN. 


THR SHAPE OF THE STACK, AND CHARACTER OF THE MACHINERY. 


CHAPTER H. 

FUEL. 


THE USE OF THE HOT BLAST, AND ANTHRACITE COAL. 

CHAPTER HI. 

FLUX. 


THE VARIOUS METHODS OF MIXING AND THE EFFORTS TO OBTAIN MALLEABLE 

IRON DIRECTLY FROM THE ORE. 


The unexpected extent to which the discussion of the Ores has 
gone, lar beyond the prescribed limits for the whole book, and 
the imperative necessity for publishing as early in the present 
season as possible to enable the Association to resume its statis¬ 
tical labors and bring np arrears, are circumstances which 
compel the author to defer this and the following Division IV 
for publication at some future time. 

713 





DIVISION IV 


IRON IN AMERICAN HISTORY 


INTRODUCTION. 


SKETCH OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF IRON CONTINUED DOWN TO THS 

SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE HISTORY OF CHARCOAL IRON IN AMERICA. 


CHAPTER II. 

HE HISTORY OF COKE AND RAW COAL IRON IN AMERICA. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE HISTORY OF ANTHRACITE IRON IN AMERICA. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PRESENT STATISTICAL CONDITION OF THE MANUFACTURE. 


The following summary of facts will show the objects, 
thus far the success of the American Iron Association. 

744 




STATISTICS. 


745 


Summary of facts contained in the tables and notes of the Bulletin of the 

American Iron Association. From the Annual Report of the Secretary , 

March 10 , 1858. 1 

During tlie last year the Association has accomplished the first 
object it had in view and obtained for the most part authentic 
statistics of the manufacture of iron in the United States and 
Canada, of 832 blast furnaces, 488 forges and 225 rolling mills. 
What could not be obtained by repeated correspondence was 
gone after, and personal search made over large areas of un¬ 
known ground; obscure and unimportant information was fol¬ 
lowed into the least accessible places, especially in the south, at 
great expense of time and money ; so that since Jan’y 1 1857, 
443 days have been spent in travelling, while at the same time 
a constant correspondence, arrangement and proof reading has 
been kept up at the office in Philadelphia. The organization of 
the work is now complete and efficient. The principal expense 
has fallen of course upon the first year of active work. One- 
fourth of the whole number of iron-works collected in the tables 
were found to be abandoned and subjects therefore of no future 
research, but only of history. One-third of the whole number 
were found to be forges, the greater part of which were occupied 
in making so small a quantity of malleable iron (about 7,000 
tons) that they are scarcely worthy to take a place in the tables 
for comparison oftener than once in ten years. The future sta¬ 
tistical correspondence and travelling will limit itself to about 
900 works. Correspondence has been established between the 
office and influential, courteous and interested iron-masters in 
every part of the Union on a pleasant and permanent footing 
which must make the yearly collection of facts comparatively 
easy and cheap and reduce the expenses of the Association 
nearly within its income. 

Accompanying each iron works in the tables is a note, more 
or less extended, detailing more precisely its situation and past 
history, any peculiarities or alterations in its shape, arrangement 
or working, the success or failure of experiments, the situation 
of mines and markets, the cost of materials in all cases where 
this has been volunteered by the owners, and the advertisement 
of any intention or wish of the owners to sell. In no other 

1 Copied from pp. 167-174 of the Bulletin. 


446 


PART II.-DIVISION IV. 


cases lias private information been sought or used ; nor lias any 
attempt been made to take account or make an estimate of the 
amount of stock on hand in the different iron regions, or trans¬ 
cend in any way the just limits of a strictly general interest, or 
of an impartial scientific record of facts for the use and benefit 
of all. It is believed that in this respect these tables and notes 
are unexceptionable, as they are certainly unparalleled for ac¬ 
curacy and extent. The Association may well claim the sym¬ 
pathy and support of the great body of American iron men on 
the strength of this first full practical representation of their 
interests even to their own eyes ever made. And it is evident 
that one of its chief values will be lost if it be not followed up 
from year to year with steadiness and energy. 

At the close of last year there should have been a fresh cor¬ 
respondence opened for the purpose of perfecting the column 
devoted to last year’s production. But the embarrassments of 
the business community cut off from the Association its resources 
at the moment when it needed them most, and it is therefore 
proposed to delay sending out the next circular until next De¬ 
cember, when both 1857 and 1858 can be obtained together. 2 

The American Iron Association has exerted itself to effect an 
exhaustive survey and analysis of the iron production of the 
United States. 

Wherever there has been doubt about the correctness of the 
information furnished us by the owners or managers of iron 
works, it has been checked by side inquiry, or by an inspection 
of the books on the spot; and all works from which no informa¬ 
tion could be obtained in any other way have been visited and 
examined personally. The data thus collected are therefore 
more than usually reliable; and where the truth could not by 
any means be arrived at, the fact is so stated on the face of the 
tables and explanations offered in the subsequent notes.* The 
consequence has been, on the one hand a large addition to the 
list of iron-works previously known and of persons interested in 
the manufacture, and on the other hand a material correction 
of the exaggerated local reports of the manufacture which have 
gone before for true. It is the intention of the Association to 
prosecute these researches periodically with the same expense 

2 A circular has however been lately issued and the results up to date of printing are 
embodied in this Summary. * Viz. of the Bulletin. 


STATISTICS. 


747 


of care, omitting nothing which can insure correctness in detail 
and furnish an unbroken history of the manufacture of iron in 
every one of its regions and departments. 

There are three principal departments of the iron manufac¬ 
ture ; the first represented by the Blast Furnaces and Bloomary 
Forges, producing crude iron from the ore; the second repre¬ 
sented by the Forges properly so called, turning cast iron into 
malleable blooms and slabs; and the third represented by the 
Bolling Mills converting pig and malleable iron into manufac¬ 
tured shapes ready for the mechanic, or the civil engineer. 
Beyond this point the manufacture of iron cannot be followed 
with any present organization of inquiry, or without great 
expense. 

The following table will show the present extent and distribu¬ 
tion of the works in these departments and in the different 
States of the Union. 


STATES. 

Anthracite 

furnaces. 

Charcoal 
and Coke. 

Abandoned 

furnaces. 

Bloomary 

forges. 

Abandoned 

bloomaries. 

Refinery- 

forges. 

Abandoned 

refineries. 

Rolling 

Mills. 

1 

1 

Abandoned 

Maine. 

• • 

1 


• • 


• • 


1 

• 0 

New Hampshire. 

• • 

1 


• • 


1 


• • 


Vermont. 

• • 

5 


5 


• , 


1 


Massachusetts. 

3 

7 


• • 


5 

1 

19 


Rhode Island,. 

• • 

• • 


• • 


• • 


2 


Connecticut. 

1 

14 


• • 


6 


5 


New York. 

14 

29 

6 

42 

1 

3 

2 

11 

5 

New Jersey. 

4 

6 

12 

48 

29 

2 


10 

1 

Pennsylvania. 

93 

150 

102 

1 

3 

110 

44 

91 

5 

Delaware. 

, , 

• • 

1 

• • 


• • 


4 


Maryland . 

6 

24 

7 

• • 


• • 


13 


Virginia . 


39 

56 

• • 


43 


12 


North Carolina . 


3 

3 

36 


• • 


1 

1 

South Carolina . 


4 

4 

2 


• • 


3 


Georgia . 


7 

1 

4 


• • 


2 


Alabama . 


3 

1 

14 


• • 


• • 


Tennessee . 


41 

33 

50 

2 

9 

3 

3 

2 

Kentucky . 


30 

17 

• • 


4 

9 

8 


Arkausas . 


• • 

• • 

1 


• • 

• • 

• • 


Missouri . 


7 

• • 

• • 


3 

• • 

5 

1 

Illinois. 


2 

• • 

• • 


• • 

• • 

1 


Indiana. 


2 

3 

• • 


• • 

• • 

1 


Ohio. 


54 

26 

• • 


• • 

5 

15 


Michigan. 


7 

• • 

3 


• • 

• • 

2 


Wisconsin. 


3 

• • 

• • 


• • 

• • 

• • 


Total, • • • • • • • 

121 I 

439 

272 

203 

35 

186 

64 1 

210 

15 

'u ♦ 


In working order 1159 = Furnaces 560 Forges 389 R. M. 210 

Abandoned 386 = Furnaces 272 Forges 99 R. M. 15 

In all 1545 = Furnaces 832 Forges 488 R. M. 225 





































































ns 


PART II.—DIVISION IV. 


In this synopsis attention is to a certain extent distracted from 
the regions into which the field of the iron manufacture distri¬ 
butes itself by the desirableness of showing the production of 
individual States. There are however in fact certain geogra¬ 
phical iron centres which are wholly irrespective of international 
boundary lines. 

1. There is the iron region of northern New York, which 
formerly included Vermont and makes its iron from primitive 
ores by means of 40 bloomaries and a few blast furnaces, three 
of which are now anthracite. 

2. There is the hematite and primary ore belt of the High¬ 
lands, beginning in western Massachusetts and running through 
northern New Jersey into Pennsylvania, containing 44 charcoal 
and 22 anthracite furnaces and 60 forges most of them making 
iron from the ore. Some of these works are of the oldest in the 
United States and of revolutionary celebrity. Yet the region 
itself hardly holds its own, in spite of its admirable location, in 
the present condition of the manufacture, owing to its ruinous 
proximity to the seaboard ports glutted as they are with foreign 
iron. 

3. Eastern Pennsylvania and northeastern Maryland is the 
greatest iron region in the Union, containing as it does 98 an¬ 
thracite and 103 charcoal furnaces, and 111 forges, none of 
which last produce iron from the ore. It is itself divisible into 
smaller areas, with distinct geographical and geological limits, 
affording primitive and brown hematite ores, and in the centre 
lies its anthracite region of principal productiveness. 

4. Northwestern Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania 
constitute together a fourth much smaller iron region, with its 
coal-measure carbonate ores, and its 42 furnaces, and two or 
three forges. Its production in the tables is accidentally in¬ 
creased by the circumstance that the great Cambria works of 
Johnstown have been built within its northern limits. 

5. Pennsylvania has still another and more important iron 
region in the northwest, including the northeastern corner of 
Ohio. Here 66 furnaces have been in blast manufacturing iron 
from the buhrstone and other carbonaceous ores at the northern 
outcrop of the great Bituminous Coal Begion. All the forging 
of this region is done in the Polling Mills and workshops of 
Pittsburg and other centres of trade upon the Ohio waters. 


STATISTICS. 


749 


k 


6. The Ironton Pegion through which the Ohio river breaks 
above Portsmouth contains 45 furnaces on the Ohio and 17 on 
the Kentucky side, some of which use the coal of the mine for 
fuel, and all of them the ores of the coal measures for stock. 

7. The old iron-making region of middle and eastern Virginia, 
a prolongation of the Pennsylvania region across the Potomac, 
supplied with the same brown hematite and magnetic ores, 
contains 16 furnaces in its division east of the Blue Pidge only 
one of which is in blast, and 30 furnaces west of the Blue Pidge. 
It has also 35 forges. 

8. In the northern part of East Tennessee, and northwest 
corner of North Carolina, is seen a knot of 41 bloomary forges 
and 9 furnaces using the hematite and magnetic ores of the 
Highland range; while to the west of them at the base of the 
Cumberland Mountains, and on the outcrop of the fossiliferous 
“ dyestone” ore of the upper silurian rocks, are 14 forges and 5 
furnaces. In the southwestern corner of North Carolina are 5 
forges of the same kind, and further to the east is a belt through 
the centre of North Carolina passing over the line a few miles 
into South Carolina consisting of 27 forges and 5 furnaces. 
There is also a small iron region in northern Georgia along the 
line of the Chattahooche, which passes over into Alabama. This 
whole country possesses an incalculable, inexhaustible abund¬ 
ance of the richest ores, while its production of iron still remains 
at a minimum. 

9. There is as yet but one principal iron region in the far 
west, that of western Tennessee and western Kentucky, with 
its peculiar ores, and 45 furnaces, and six or eight forges ; but 

10. In Missouri a beginning has been made with the Iron 
Mountain as a centre, and there already exist 7 furnaces in blast 
upon brown hematite and primitive ores. 

Tabulating these regions we obtain their relative importance 
as follows: 


Production of Furnace Pig Iron of the different regions , in the order of Quantity Produced. 


750 


PART II.-DIVISION IV. 


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STATISTICS. 


751 


The entire production of raw metal from the furnaces in 1856 
was a little over eight hundred thousand tons. The tables show 
much less change in the manufacture from year to year over the 
whole Union than was supposed to have taken place, judging 
from common rumor and local disconnected information. But 
they also show large local fluctuations and even permanent 
reversions of the rate of increase, and very different proportions 
for different regions. It is hardly necessary to add that they 
are sadly far from showing anything like the increase which the 
imperfect statistics of 1857 encouraged us in anticipating. 
Throughout the charcoal smelting regions, especially of the 
West, the year 1855, a year of drought, was also a year of feeble 
production. But for this drawback the total productions of the 
following table would have shown a more regular rate of 
increase ; yet that increase would not have amounted to more 
than 40 or 45,000 tons a year, or about six per cent on the whole 
production. The production of 1857 was not greatly influenced 
by the crisis of October, and yet is now seen pot to have reached 
that of 1856, as will appear further on. 

As to the local variations, the anthracite branch of the manu¬ 
facture is seen to mount rapidly from year to year, being 
115,000 3 tons in 1849, and 307,710 tons in 1854, an increase of 
nearly 200 per cent in 5 years, equal to a regular annual 
increase of twenty-two per cent. In 1855 it was 343,105 tons; 
a further increase of twelve per cent. In 1856, 394,509 tons; a 
further increase of nearly thirteen per cent. Whereas the 
increase of the whole iron production was but 6 per cent—a fact 
to be explained by the steady conversion of charcoal into 
anthracite furnaces, the enlargement of their capacity and espe¬ 
cially the concentration of capital about the geological centre 
of fuel in Pennsylvania. This is evident from the fact that the 
anthracite production outside of Pennsylvania has diminished 
in the same time by an annual rate of over six per cent from 
99,007 to 87,537 tons; which raises the Pennsylvania anthracite 
annual increase still higher, namely, to over twenty-two per cent , 
which curiously enough is exactly the annual increase of the 
whole anthracite production from 1849 to 1854, as stated above. 
Kespecting the production of 1857 replies have lately been 

3 Estimating for furnaces No. 3, 6 and 13 ; it is 107,256 tons in the table p. 63. 


752 


PART II.—DIVISION IV. 


received from 71 of the 121 anthracite furnaces, by which it 
appears that these 71 furnaces which made in 1856 286,160 tons, 
made in 1857 281,980, or 4,180 tons less. If the remaining 50 
furnaces preserved this proportion, the productions of 1856 and 
1857 would appear to have been nearly the same; but the fur¬ 
naces not heard from are the ones most likely to exhibit a heavy 
decline of production. The crisis of 1857 has reduced the pro¬ 
duction of 1858 to perhaps one-half that of 1857. Although it 
occurred too late in the season of 1857 to exert a great effect 
upon the production of 1857, we can ascribe to no other agency ^ 
this falling off of the production of 1857 behind that of 185^ ir .on 
thus exhibited. ; d tlie com- 


Anthracite Production of 1857, as heard from ; 


71 Furnace bring the 



No. 

heard from. 

1856. 

1857. 

Outside of Pennsylvania. 

11 

out 

of 27 

42,676 

44,612 

In the Lehigh Valley. 

20 

out 

of 24 

121,021 

113,299 

In the Schuylkill Valley. 

15 

out 

of 22 

43,275 

48,310 

Along the main Susquehanna . 

15 

out 

of 26 

39,704 

35,257 

Along the N. & W. Branches . 

10 

out 

of 22 

39,484 

40,502 

Totals. 




286,160 

281,980 


f, ^e Tennessee 

t a little enter- 

for western 
•h 

_ ces are in 

i,c 

— nds that of 


There must have been a proportionate decrease als Rock, 

production of charcoal iron, and this decrease must lr 1855 

even greater than it appears at first glance, because the >6 increased 
of coke iron has been at the expense of this charcoal a cite region 
ture, and not at the expense of the anthracite product >duct, which 
charcoal regions in western Pennsylvania and Ohio ] ' ons - 
invaded also by the raw bituminous coal process. 1 n which be- 
coal and Coke Iron production from 1854 to 185 on V rose 

the Hanging 


In New England and New York, fell off 
S. N. York and N. Jersey, 

Eastern Pennsylvania, 

Maryland, 

South of the Potomac, 

N. W. Penna. and N. Ohio, 

W. Kv. W. Tenn. Ind. and Ill. 

Total falling off, 6 


ufacture w T est- 
hat we have 


• production has 
.5,724, 60,596 to 
»daction of seve- 
The whole de- 


a. ._ 

4 Add 1,340 for increase of coke iron in this region. , 

5 Deduct 2,300 for decrease of coke and raw coal iron in this re- ' 

B “ It is noteworthy that the decrease of the charcoal iron pre he comparison of the two 
portion to the accessibility of the regions to the seaboard and to 2.561 tons, and if this rate 
stance, east of the Alleghanies shows a falling off. Northwestern P . tons increase. * 

Bible from the lakes and the Erie Canal; and western Kentucky an/ Penn. char, hot blast iron 
Orleans.” (C. E. Smith.) , n to be 125,155—80,665 = 















STATISTICS. 


753 


n S. W. Penn, and N. W. Yirga. increased,. 17,185 ’ tons 

S. Ohio and E Kentucky, “ 13,106 8 tons 

Missouri, “ 4,676 tons 

Michigan and Wisconsin, “ 4,950 tons 

Total increase,. 39,917 tons 

Balance against increase,.. 6,356 tons 


If from this account we take away the Coke and Raw Coal 
manufacture which was 54,485 tons in 1854, and 69,554 in 1856, 
the above exhibit against the prosperity of the charcoal iron 
manufacture will appear still worse. 

Charcoal Iron. 


r‘ r ew England and New York, fell off, . 


tons 

Tr ' "k and New Jersey, “ . 


tons 

nnsylvania, “ . 


tons 

u 

r 


tons 

U °otomac, “ . 


tons 

, lOhio, “ . 


tons 

. etc., “ . 


tons 

/B . 

Charcoal Iron. 

and N. W. Va. increased, . 


tons 

. 75 

tons 

, 1 E. Kentucky, “ . 

. ' 16,885 

tons 

it 

o . 


tons 

and Michigan, “ . 

ease, . 


tons 


tons 

r -» gainst Increase, . 


tons 


'■ two regions the manufacture of charcoal iron is 
ty. Of the 73 furnaces of Clarion, Yenango and 
nties Pennsylvania, one of the most productive 
'' ie United States, 37 are abandoned, and the feeling 
Clarion county is that in five years hardly a char- 
: will be in use. 

Tennessee into which Pennsylvania Iron-men ad- 
Dty years ago to build up the manufacture of iron 
^e fortunes, and were thought to have established 
i a steady increase was more than an anticipation 
• tables show a steady decline, from 1854 to 1857, 
01 183, 31,026 to 27,050 tons. Had this decline 
1 ,55, we should ascribe it to the year of drought 
n all over the west. Had it been confined to 
1 cribe it to the effects of the insurrection of 

e establishment of the Cambria Iron Works at Johnstown, the 
’>,399 tons in 1854, and 24,209 tons in 1856. 

0 ase of raw coal iron in this region. 

48 

























754 


PART II.—DIVISION IV. 


Christmas 1856, which caused many of the furnaces to go out of 
blast; but the focus of that disturbance was in Kentucky, where 
the same table (K. page 159) shows as steady an increase of 
production through the same four years, from 12,236, 13,664, 
14,902 to 15,808 tons. There seems no escape from the convic¬ 
tion that in spite of the old establishment of the manufacture 
and wealth of ore deposits south of the Kentucky-Tennessee line, 
the capital and energy of the trade is moving northward down 
the two great rivers of that region, towards the Ohio and its 
rolling mills. The establishment of the Paducah, Covington 
and Indianopolis mills and the opening up of the Missouri ’ 
region will facilitate this change. On the other ham' 1 
pletion of the Lexington and Clarksville railroad, t 
Kentucky bituminous coal down into the heart of th 
iron region will undoubtedly retard it and may by i 
prise be made to inaugurate a new era of prosperity 
Tennessee. At present only 15 of its 42 furnav 
blast (August 1858). 

In striking contrast to the last described region sta 
southern Ohio and eastern Kentucky, called the Hang 
30 of its 59 furnaces having been erected since 1850 
its production fell off nearly 15,000 tons, and in 185 
28,000, making this region second only to the anthr 
of Pennsylvania for the importance of its iron pro 
in 1856 reached 92,116 tons, and in 1857 96,000 9 U 

The west Pennsylvania and northern Ohio regio 
gan with 90,000 and fell off in 1855 21,000 tons, 

1856 to 76,000, thus reversing the exhibition of i 
Pock region and showing a tendency of the man' 
ward, down the Ohio, precisely analogous to t 
pointed out in western Tennessee. 

In eastern Pennsylvania the charcoal iron p 
diminished regularly in three years from 6° 

51,775, although these numbers include the pro 
ral coke furnaces at the head of the Juniat 
crease of charcoal iron alone was 13,179 tons.' 

* A certain number of furnaces having reported in 1857, t 
years for these furnaces gives 60,218 : 62,779 = an increase of. 
held good for the whole number of furnaces it would give 3,700 

1 Mr. C. E. Smith showed the decrease from 1847 to 1849 in ] 
to be 94,519 -58,302 =36,217, and in Peun. char, cold blast iro 



STATISTICS. 


755 


In New England, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and the 
States south of the Potomac the charcoal iron manufacture has 
fallen otf and apparently from some general and chronic cause, 
and is moving its centres westward to the limits of the bitumin¬ 
ous coal fields, and to the new iron lands of Missouri, Wisconsin 
and Michigan. 

The production of last year (1857) promised in the spring and 
summer to be a large increase upon that of 1856, but the panic 
of September and the subsequent withdrawal of credit from the 
manufacturing energy of the country stopped most of the rolling 
mills and obliged some of the furnaces to go out of blast. Many 
continued to run up their stock but ceased to procure fresh sup¬ 
plies of ore, and the winter has passed at many furnaces with 
almost no attempt at coaling. The anthracite region of the Le¬ 
high is prominent in continuing to make iron ; its production 
will probably reach two-tliirds of its ordinary amount. But in 
the Schuylkill, and Lebanon valleys 22 out of 28 anthracite fur¬ 
naces were idle in May last, and in the Susquehanna and Juni¬ 
ata valleys 15 out of 20. We may state that at present not 
more than 50 or 60 out of the whole 121 anthracite furnaces of 
the northern States are making iron. 

In northwestern Pennsylvania in January last only 20 char¬ 
coal furnaces continued in blast, some of which were running 
out stock. 

In the great Ironton region of southern Ohio and eastern 
Kentucky in January last there were a large number standing 
still, and many of those in blast were making small preparation 
for the coming year. This year is already far enough advanced 
to make it certain that its general production of iron in the 
United States will fall off to perhaps one-half of that of 1857 ; 
the tone of the replies to the circular of July 1, was almost with¬ 
out exception angry and desponding (Aug. 1858). 

The second department of the Iron Manufacture repre¬ 
sented by Forges, is divisible into two parts. Bloomary Forges 
are small blast furnaces with open fronts like blacksmith fires 
intended to reduce the finer kinds of ore directly into a mass of 
iron which is placed under a tilt hammer and drawn out into a 
slab or anchony. 




34,490. His statistics for 1850 continued the decline, giving for P. C. hot B. 42,555, P. 
C. cold B. 70.727. (Appendix to Report of Committee on Statistics, page 103.) 


* 


756 


PART II.—DIVISION IV. 


The bloomaries of the United States produce 28,633 tons of 
malleable iron directly from the ore. 

Other forges are adjuncts to the blast furnaces and deal with 
their pigs of cast iron in like manner, converting them into 
blooms or slabs of malleable iron ready for reheating in the 
rolling mill. North of the Potomac 38,158 tons of malleable 
iron are thus forged, and 3,475 south and 11,611 west of it; in 
all 53,244 tons. 

A few forges deal with scrap iron chiefly, but they differ in 
no respect from other forges. 

It is a great geographical feature in the iron manufacture of the 
United States that nearly all the forges are on the Atlantic side 
of the Alleghany Mountain. The Bloomaries are so located 
because they stand upon the magnetic ores; but the common 
charcoal or German forge of the eastern valleys is replaced 
upon the waters of the Ohio by the puddling furnace of the 
rolling mill. 

There is a third division of the forges that use their hammers, 
which are often of great size and weight, in true forging, in 
making shafts, cranks, axles, anchors, chains, anvils, and all 
kinds of heavy iron-work. This sort of forge is of every size 
and graduates downwards into the hand forge of the machine 
shop or smithery. Our tables however are confined to separate 
forges, of all three kinds. Of this heavy machine-forging 7,137 
tons are done north of the Potomac, and about 5,000 tons in the 
west. 

The third department of the Iron Manufacture is occupied by 
the Polling Mills, which, take the cast iron of the furnaces and 
the charcoal iron of the bloomaries and common forges, refine 
it in puddling furnaces, roll it into rough bars, cut, pile and 
reheat these in heating furnaces and roll them into rails, mer¬ 
chant bars, and plates and sheet-iron of all kinds for all the pur¬ 
poses of manufacture. Attached to all the old and many of the 
new rolling mills we find the nail, spike, railroad chair and 
horseshoe factories. The rolling mills are to be distinguished 
therefore into rail mills, boiler-plate mills, nail mills, and mer¬ 
chant bar mills, the first three having a certain geographical 
distribution, and the last being found in all parts of the iron 
making regions. 


STATISTICS. 


757 


1. The rail mills of the United States are 

Tods of rails. 

The Bay State, South Boston, which made in 1856. 17,871 

The Rensselaer, Troy, N. Y., “ . 13,512 

The Trenton, N. J., “ about. 13,000 

The Phoenixville, Pa., “ . 18 592 

The Pottsville, Schuylkill Co., Pa., “ 3,021 

The Lackawanna, Luzerne Co., Pa., “ 11,338 

The Rough and Ready, Danville, Pa., “ 5,259 

The Montour, “ “ 17,538 

The Safe Harbor, Lancaster Co., Pa., “ 7,347 

The Mount Savage, Cumberland, Md., “ 7,159 

The Cambria, Cambria Co., Pa., “ 13,206 

The Brady’s Bend, Armstrong Co., Pa.,“ 7,533 

The Cosalo, Lawrence Co., Pa., “ 000 

The Washington, at Wheeling, Va., “ 2,355 

The McNickle, at Covington, Ky., “ 1,976 

The Newbury, near Cleveland, Ohio, “ 000 

The Railroad Mill, at Cleveland, “ 000 

The Wyandotte, near Detroit, Mich., “ 1,848 

The Chicago, in Illinois, “ 000 

The Indianapolis, in Indiana, “ 000 


Total above make of Rails in 1856. 141,555 


The last four mills have been recently started with the inten¬ 
tion of re-rolling western rails. The Fairmount at Philadelphia, 
has been also recently adapted to rolling rails; and the Palo 
Alto at Pottsville, rolled a thousand tons or so, in 1856. There 
were therefore made 142,555 tons of railroad iron in 1856, of 
which two-tliirds were made in Pennsylvania. 

The extension of this branch of the iron manufacture will be 
seen by the following comparison of four years : 

Made. Imported. Total of consumption. 


a 1853 . 


.. .298,995... 

.. .403,995 

2 1854 . 


.. .282,867. .. 

.. .403,867 

9 1855 . 

. 134,000. 

.. .127,516... 

.. .261,516 

1856 . 

. 142,555. 

.. .155,496... 

.. .298,051 


2. The principal boiler plate and sheet iron mills of the 
United States are centered geographically about Philadelphia: 

East of the Delaware there are but two mills, both at Jersey City, which Tons. 

made in 1856... 550 

In E. Pennsylvania on the Schuylkill and lower Susquehanna there are 25 

mills which made in 1856.. 21,218 

* There is some reason to fear that several rail mills overstated their production from 
5,000 (in the aggregate) to 10,000 tons, and that it would not be unsafe to give for 1853, 
’4 and ’5, the following figures—100,000, 110,000, 125,000. The figures for 1856 must 
furnish, a very close approximation to the truth. 





































758 


PART II.-DIVISION IV. 


Brought forward. 21,768 

Near Wilmington, Delaware, 3 mills made. 1,374 

Between Wilmington and Baltimore 7 miles made. 2,998 

In Pittsburgh 14 mills made, besides bars, rods, hoops and nails, boiler iron 

3,212, and sheet iron to the extent of 6,437. 9,649 

Sheet iron at the Sharon Mill, Mercer Co.? 500 

The Bloom Mill at Portsmouth, S. Ohio, and the Globe Mill at Cincinnati, 

made about. 2,000 

A mill for boiler plate has been erected at St. Louis. - 

Total. 38,639 

3. The nail mills on the other hand have but two principal 
centres; one in southeastern New England, and one at Pitts¬ 
burg. Many small nail mills have stopped, as the profit has 
been reduced to the lowest point by competition. It is 
not so easy to obtain the amount of nails made, because many 
mills still include nails among their productions for their home 
market. The following table will approximate to the truth in 


the matter of production : 

Tons. 

In southeast New England 12 mills made (1856) of nails principally. 25,000 

Troy, New York. 4,000 

Rockaway, Boonton, (2) N. Jersey, nails, spikes... . 8,250 

In southern New Jersey. 4,167 

On the Schuylkill were made in 5 mills about. 9,000 

On the lower Susquehanna in 2 mills about... 2,600 

In middle Pennsylvania in 2 mills about. 2,000 

In Maryland at 2 mills. 2,155 

In Richmond 1 mill. 1,075 

In Pittsburg 14 mills made nails, spikes, rivets, tacks....... 14,195 

In Wheeling, 2 mills made. 6,465 

In Ironton, southern Ohio, 1 mill made. 775 

In Mahoning Co. N. E. Ohio, 1 mill made. 380 

In Buffalo . 1,400 


Total, nails.81,462 


4. It is not easy to state the amount of tons of manufactured iron 
other than rails, plates and nails made in the rolling mills, as the 
rolling mills returns are less complete than any other kind, and 
more complicated. But Mr. Chas. E. Smith has successfully un¬ 
dertaken to do this in statements to occupy the following pages, 
by an analysis of the already published records, showing that, the 
total product of the rolling mills of the United States being 498,081 
tons, the amount of manufactured iron other than rails, plates 
and nails, falling under this fourth head, is 240,000 tons. 

J. P. Lesley, Secretary. 


























STATISTICS. 


759 


Statements showing the American production , the importation , 
and the total consumption of each hind of iron, in the United 
States for the year 1856 , 


COMPILED FROM THE FOREGOING- TABLES, BY CHARLES E. SMITH. 


I. 

Product of Anthracite Pig Iron in 1856. 

Tons. 

Massachusetts. 3 furnaces, 2 4,443 

Connecticut. 1 « 0 000 

New York,. 14 « 47,257 

New Jersey . . 4 « 26 117 

Pennsylvania. 93 « 306,972 

Maryland . 6 “ 10,720 

Total anthracite.... 121 _ 

1856. Av. value $25 in Phila., $9,862,725 
1858. “ “ 20 “ 7,890,180 

Product of Coke Pig Iron in 1856. 

Pennsylvania. 21 furnaces, 39,953 

Maryland. 3 « 4,528 

Total coke.. 24 _ 

1856. Av. value $25.$1,112,025 

1858. “ “ 21. 934,101 


Product of Raw Bituminous Coal Pig Iron in 1856. 

Pennsylvania . 6 furnaces, 8,417 

Ohio.. . 13 “ 16,656 

Total raw coal.. 19 _ 

1856. Av. value $25... $626,825 

1858. “ “ 21. 526,533 


Product of Charcoal Pig Iron in 1856. 


Maine. 


2,100 

New Hampshire. 


it 

000 

Vermont. 


it 

2,420 

Massachusetts. 


u 

8,564 

Connecticut . 

. 14 

<< 

12,876 

New York. 


a 

21,774 

New Jersey. 

. 6 

u 

2,100 

Pennsylvania. 


<< 

96,154 

Maryland. 

. 21 

u 

26,470 

Virginia. 

. 39 

u 

14,828 

North Carolina.. 

. 3 

<( 

450 

South Carolina. 

. 4 

u 

1,506 

Georgia. 

. 7 

il 

2,807 

Alabama. 

. 3 

u 

1,495 

Tennessee. 

. 41 

u 

28,476 


Tona. 


394,609 


44,481 


25,078 


8 The works here set down are only those running, or in running order. 

The discrepancy between this and Mr. Lesley’s figures in the table on page 747 is 
duo to the fact that there is an interval of two years between the dates of the two tables, 
the one representing the furnaces in working order in 1856, the other in 1858. 








































TOO 


PART II.—DIVISION IV. 


Tons. 


Amount brought up,... 

Kentucky. 

Ohio . 

Indiana. 

Illinois. 

Missouri. 

Wisconsin. 

Michigan. 

Total charcoal 


30 furnaces, 36,563 
41 “ 70,355 

2 “ 1,800 

2 “ 1,900 

7 « 10,138 

3 “ 2,500 

7 “ 3,678 

- 416 - 


1856. Av. value, $30.$10,465,620 

1858. “ “ 24. 8,392,496 

Total product of pig iron in 1856 ... 

Total number of furnaces running, or in running order, 580. 


Tons. 

464,063 


348,854 


812,917 


Product in Blooms and Bars made direct from the ore by the Bloomary or 

Catalan process, in 1856. 


Vermont,. 

.. 5 

bloomaries, 

1,650 

New York, .. 

. 42 

<< 

18,710 

New Jersey,. 

. 48 

U 

4,487 

North Carolina,.. 

. 36 

u 

1,182 

South Carolina,. 

. 2 

u 

640 

Georgia,.. 

. 4 

(( 

40 

Alabama,. 

. 14 

(( 

252 

Tennessee, . 

. 60 

ii 

1,222 

Michigan,. 

. 3 

<( 

450 

Total product of. 


- 204 



Of this quantity 7,000 tons were bars, 

21,633 “ “ blooms. 

1856. Average value $50 00, $1,081,650 
1858. In Troy, N. Y. 4 37 50, 811,237 

Grand total production of iron from the ore, 1856, . 841,650 


II. 

Statement of the total quantity of iron of all kinds consumed in domestic 


forges, rolling mills and foundries , viz. :— 

Domestic product from the ore above stated,. 841,550 tons. 

Deduct quantity sold in bars immediately to consumers by 
bloomaries, and therefore not entering into the manufac¬ 
tures embraced by this table,. 7,000 

- 834,550 

Scraps imported,. 10,320 

“ domestic (estimated),. 25,000 

Old rails,. 100,000 

Scotch pig imported,. 55,403 


Total,. 1,025,273 


4 The largest market for this kind of iron. 










































STATISTICS. 


761 


Of tliis total, excepting Scotch pig therefrom, the following 
are the proportions of pig , scrap , and old rails respectively con¬ 
sumed by domestic forges , rolling mills and foundries . 


Amount last stated,. 1,025,273 

Deduct Scotch pig,. 55,403 


- 969,870 

By forges, product,. 53,244 

Waste, . 17,748 


- 70.992 

By rolling mills, product,. 498,081 

Waste,. 124,520 


622,601 

Deduct blooms, 5 . . 60,877 

- 661,724 

By foundries, domestic pig,. 337,154 

- 969,870 

The Scotch pig imported was all consumed by the foundries; 
making, with the domestic pig, a total for this class of works, 
of 392,557 tons of pig. 

It is impossible to make such an analysis of the foregoing 
statement, as shall show, separately, the exact amount of pig, 
and of scrap, respectively taken by the forges and the mills; 
but an approximate estimate may be made. Assuming that the 
country, or refinery forges take no scrap; and that the others 
use only scrap (which is very neary the fact), we shall obtain the 
following as the consumption of domestic pig iron :— 


Domestic pig consumed by the forges,. 62,325 

“ “ rolling mills,. 423,438 

“ “ foundries,. 337,154 


Making the total stated on the previous page,. 812,917 

III. 

The product in 1856, of the forges, not bloomaries, consuming pig and 
scrap , was as follows :— 

New Hampshire,. 1 forge, 600 tons. 

Massachusetts,. 5 forges, 1,850 

Connecticut,. 6 “ 1,950 

New York,. 3 “ 1,360 


6 The total blooms produced from ore is. 28,633 

Sold direct in bars,. 7,000 

21,633 

Total blooms by refinery forges,. 53,244 

Made into bars and shapes,. 14,000 

The waste in making which is added under the head of forges in the text, 39,244 39,244 
Total blooms going into mills,. 60,877 



































762 


rART II.-DIVISION IV. 


Brought forward,. 

New Jersey,. 2 forges, 

Pennsylvania,. Ill 

Maryland, . 2 

Virginia, . 43 

Kentucky, . 4 

Tennessee,. 9 

Missouri,. 3 

Total product of. 189 63,244 

Of this quantity there were made into bars, car and carriage axles, 

locomotive tire, shafts, anchors, and various shapes about. 14,000 tons. 

And into blooms,. 39,244 “ 

1856. Average value Bars, etc., $120,. $1,680,000 

Blooms, 80,. 3,139,520 


6,760 tons. 

671 

31,727 

480 

2,995 

4,511 

6,195 

905 


U 


u 


1858. Average value Bars, etc., $100,. $1,400,000 

“ “ Blooms, 70, . 2,747,080 


$4,819,520 


$4,147,080 


IV. 

The product of the rolling mills in 1856 was as follows: 


Vermont, 




North Carolina, 
South Carolina, 

Georgia,. 

Tennessee, ... 
Ohio,. 


Indiana, 6 

Illinois, 6 

Missouri, 


1 mill, 

4,500 tons. 

19 

mills, 

55,292 

2 

it 

4,475 

6 

u 

5,759 

1 

(( 

500 

13 

U 

65,172 

10 

u 

28,403 

91 

u 

241,484 

4 

(( 

2,211 

13 

<( 

14,812 

12 

u 

26,355 

1 

u 

215 

3 

u 

1,210 

1 

a 

900 

3 

u 

2,680 

15 

u 

30,980 

7 

u 

16,865 

1 

u 

000 

1 

u 

000 

4 

u 

4,420 

2 

u 

1,848 


209 

498 


V. 


Looking at onr subject from the point of view of consump¬ 
tion, we find that the following statement will represent the 


6 Not completed at this date. 

















































STATISTICS. 


T63 


quantity of iron of all kinds used in every form of domestic 
manufacture for general consumption , viz :— 

Total of domestic iron produced from ore as before stated on page 76 D, 841,550 tons. 


Pig 7 iron . 


55,403 


Rolled 7 and Hammered.. 


298,275 


Scraps 7 . 


10,320 


Total. 



363,998 

To which add by estimate, old rails 

re-worked—domestic, 

100,000 


Scrap collected and sold. 


25,000 

125,000 

Grand total,. 



1,330,548 


VI. 


Examining the history of this total to ascertain the quantity 
and kinds of rolled and hammered iron , obtained from all 
sources , consumed in the United States during 1856, we find the 


following details: 

Domestic 

product. 

Tons. 

Imported. 

Tons. 

Total 

consumed. 

Tons. 

Rails,. 

142,555 

167,400 

309,955 

Boiler and sheet,. 

Nails (2,645 machines),. 

38,639 

81,462 

15,053 

53,692 

81,462 

Bar, rod, band, and hoop,.. 

Hammered bars and shapes,. 

235,425 ) 
21,000 ) 

115,822 

372,247 

Amount of finished wrought iron which entered j 
into general consumption in 1856,.! 

519,081 

298,275 

817,356 


VII. 


To ascertain the percentage respectively , of foreign and domes¬ 
tic iron of all kinds , which entered into general consumption 
in the year 1856, we have 


—- - - J ' 

Rolled and Hammered, as above,. 

Pig iron,. 

Domestic. 

. 519,081 

. 337,154 

Foreign. 

298,275 

55,403 

Total. 

817,356 

392,557 


856,235 

353,678 

1,209,913 


Which results give the proportion of TO per cent domestic , to 


30 per cent foreign. 

The 21,000 tons mentioned above as domestic hammered ban's 

a/nd shapes , were produced as follows:— 

By bloomaries, bars,. *7,000 tons. 

By forges proper,. • • • 14,000 “ 

Total,. 21,000 t ons. 


7 To obtain the closest practicable approximation of imports for the calendar year 
1856 , the official returns, for the fiscal years ending the 30th of June, 1856 and 1857, 
have been averaged together. The result is in the text. 

































764 


PAllT II.-DIVISION IV. 


VIII. 

The quantity of foreign imported hammered iron cannot be 
exactly ascertained because of a change in the Treasury classi¬ 
fication, which took place in 1854, by which rolled and ham¬ 
mered bars are included in one class as “ bar iron.” For the 6 
years previous to 1854, the amount of hammered bars averaged 
about 20,000 tons, wdiich is probably nearly correct at this 


time. 

Domestic,. 21,000 

Foreign,. 20,000 - 

Total consumption of hammered iron,. 41,000 


IX. 


Of the total domestic production of pig, and rolled and 
hammered iron above stated, viz., 856,235 tons, the following 
are the quantity and value, shown with reference to the various 


kinds of product:— 

Price. 

1856. 

- A \ 

Amount. 

1858. 

Price. Amount. 

337,154 tons foundry pig,. 

... $28“ 

$9,440,312 

$22 00 $7,417,388 

142,556 

“ rails,. 

... 63 

8,980,965 

48 00 6,842,640 

38,639 

“ boiler and sheet,. 

... 120 

4,636,680 

100 00 3,863,900 

81,462 

“ nails,. 

... 84 

6,842,808 

67 50 5,498,685 

235,425 

“ bar, rod, band, hoop, .... 

... 65 

15,302,625 

57 50 13,536,937 

21,000 

“ hammered iron,. 

... 125 

2,625,000 

100 00 2,100,000 

856,235 

U 

$47,828,390 

$39,259,550 


The total domestic pig iron made was. 812,917 

Amount imported,. 55,403 

Total pig iron consumed for all purposes . 868,320 


Total number of Iron Works. 


Anthracite blast furnaces,. 121 

Coke “ “ 24 

Raw bituminous coal “ “ 19 

Charcoal “ “ 416 

Total number of blast furnaces,. 5S0 

Bloomaries, . 204 

Forges,. 189 

Rolling mills,. 209 

Total of all kinds , running or in running order ... 1,182 


Number of double puddling furnaces in the mills,. 208 

“ single “ “ .1,054 


* Estimating 302,154 tons at $27, and 35,000 tons of cold blast charcoal iron for car 
wheels, malleable castings, and extra machinery, at $35. Average $28. 



































STATISTICS. 


765 


Total number in the rolling mills, counting the double furnaces as 


equal to two,.1,470 

Number in the forges,. 34 

Total number in the United States,. 1,504 

Total number of bloomary fires,. 442 

“ “ refinery or forge fires proper,. 496 

“ “ nail machines,. 2,645 


I 11 conclusion, it is proper to remark that the materials from 
which the foregoing summary has been prepared were obtained 
chiefly through the indefatigable industry of Mr. J. P. Lesley, 
Secretary of the Association, assisted by Mr. Jos. Lesley, Jr., 
and Mr. B. S. Lyman, during a period of nearly two years, at 
an expense of about six thousand dollars, defrayed entirely by 
the voluntary contributions of the members of the Iron Asso¬ 
ciation. 

The want of full and reliable information on the subject has 
been long felt, and several previous attempts had been made to 
procure it; but when the parties to these, after more or less 
progress in the accomplishment of their design, came fully to 
appreciate the vast field which it was necessary to canvass, and 
the great labor and expense incident to their purpose, they 
abandoned it in despair. 

This comprises, therefore, the first and only complete state¬ 
ment of the iron industry of the Union. No expense or pains 
have been spared to make it perfectly accurate. In so extended 
an inquiry some errors of detail are to be expected, and such, 
no doubt, will be found, although not at present known to exist. 
No error, however, can be discovered which will affect the 
general result. The tables are as accurate as it is possible, from 
the nature of the case, to make them. 

The great facts demonstrated are, that we have nearly 1,200 
efficient works in the Union; that these produce annually about 
850,000 tons of iron; the value of which in an ordinary year is 
fifty millions of dollars. Of this amount the portion expended 
for labor alone is about $35,000,000.® 

9 The proportion of labor in the price of a ton of pig iron is about 60 per cent. In rails 
and bar iron about 66 per cent. In the smaller and finer descriptions of iron about 76 
per cent. 








766 


PART II.-DIVISION IV. 


The amount of rolled iron made in the whole United States 
is about 500,000 tons per annum. Of this about 300,000 tons is 
made east, and 200,000 tons west of the Alleghany mountains. 

The annual average importation of rolled iron for the eight 
years from 1850 to 1857 inclusive, was about 305,000 tons, of 
which the Atlantic States consumed about 200,000 tons, making 
the total consumption of rolled iron in the seaboard States about 
500,000 tons per annum, three-fifths of which is domestic and 
two-fifths foreign. 

The 105,000 tons of foreign iron consumed in the west and 
southwest is nearly all composed of rails. The smaller descrip¬ 
tions of iron consumed there are chiefly of domestic manufac¬ 
ture. At least seven-eighths of all the descriptions of imported 
iron, except rails, are consumed in the Atlantic States. 

The annual importation of railroad iron for the eight years, 
1850 to 1857, averaged 202,000 tons, of which about one-half 
has been taken by the Atlantic States. 


Charles E. Smith. 


CHAPTER Y. 


THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN AND ILLUSTRATED BY 

THE IRON MANUFACTURE. 

The political questions which arise and centre in the question 
of a Tariff embrace interests too extensive to be circumscribed 
within the iron regions of this or any other land. All the 
manufactures of an infant colony must be fostered, like all the 
energies of an infant family, until with time and manhood, the 
nation, like the individual, full formed, mature and independent, 
may convert its previous necessities into arguments for cosmo¬ 
politan good-will, and find itself prepared to abate its claims to 
the right of undisturbed self-government, for the higher purpose 
of extending the exercise of the same right to the feebler races 
and nationalities of the common planet. The theory should fol¬ 
low—not precede the practice. Tariffs must prepare the world 
for Free Trade. Home industry is more needful and nobler than 
the luxuries of foreign commerce. The solution which has 
no centres of crystallization precipitates an amorphous, inco¬ 
herent, friable mass; and the government which systematically 
prejudices the conditions of manufacturing life against both the 
capital which seeks locations and the skilled labor which asks 
employment, is anti-democratic, and in America is certain to be 
overturned. 

But this subject is worthy of larger space and more careful 
elaboration than can be afforded to it here. 


MANAGERS FOR 1859-60. 


G. N. ECKERT, 

J. H. TOWNE, 

C. E. SMITH, . 

Hon. D. R. PORTER, 

S. J. REEYES, 
STEPHEN COWELL, 
W. M. LYON, 

ELIAS BAKER, . 
JNO. McMANUS, . 
JNO. H. REED, . 

C. C. ALGER, 

JAS. MYERS, 

G. D. COLEMAN, . 

J. W. TYSON, 

AB. S. HEWITT, . 
JNO. A. WRIGHT, 
PERCIYAL ROBERTS, 
CHAS. S. WOOD, . 

H. N. BURROUGHS, 
JOHN CAMPBELL, 
GEO. T. LEWIS, . 


. Philadelphia, President, 
. Philadelphia, Vice-Pres . 
. Philadelphia, Treasurer . 
. Harrisburg, 

. Philadelphia, 

. Philadelphia, 

. Pittsburg, 

. Altoona, (Penn.) 

. Reading, (Penn.) 

. Boston, 

. Hudson, (New York.) 

. Columbia, (Penn.) 

. Lebanon, (Penn.) 

. Baltimore, 

. New York, 

. Lewistown, (Penn.) 

. Philadelphia, 

. Johnstown, (Penn.) 

. Philadelphia, 

. Ironton (Ohio), 

. Clarkesville (Tenn.) 




AMERICAN IRON ASSOCIATION. 


CONSTITUTION. 

Whereas, the manufacture of iron, in its various branches, has acquired an im¬ 
portance in this country second only to the great agricultural interest; and whereas, 
its more rapid and economical development has been retarded by want of unity of 
action and free intercommunication of opinions and experiences among those inter¬ 
ested ; and whereas, we believe great advantages are best obtained by united action, 
we therefore deem it important to form an association in this city, to be called the 
American Iron Association. 

The general objects of this Association shall be to procure regularly the statistics 
of the trade, both at home and abroad. To provide for the mutual interchange of 
information and experience, both scientific and practical. To collect and preserve 
all works relating to iron, and to form a complete cabinet of ores, limestones, and 
coals. To encourage the formation of such schools as are designed to give the 
young iron-master a proper and thorough scientific training, preparatory to engag¬ 
ing in practical operations. And, generally, to take all proper measures for ad¬ 
vancing the interests of the trade in all its branches. 

ARTICLE i. 

The affairs of the Association shall be conducted by a board of twenty-one mana¬ 
gers, to be chosen annually by ballot, on the second Wednesday of March, by the 
members of the Association. They shall continue in office one year, and until others 
be chosen, and shall have power to fill vacancies that may occur in their body. They 
shall, from among their members, at their first stated meeting, elect a President, a 
first and second Vice-President, and a Treasurer. 

Three members shall constitute a quorum at any meeting of the Board of Mana¬ 
gers. The first election shall be held on the sixth day of March, A.D. 1855. 

ARTICLE II. 

The Association shall meet on the second Wednesday of March, June, September 
and December in every year. The President, or, in his absence, either of the Vice- 
Presidents, shall call a meeting of the Association whenever requested by ten mem¬ 
bers, in writing : Provided, that the first stated meeting shall be held on the sixth 
day of March, A.D. 1855. 


ARTICLE III. 

The Board of Managers shall meet statedly on the second Monday in every month, 
for the transaction of such business as may come before them, and, at the stated 
meeting in March, shall lay before the Association a report of the proceedings of 
the vear. The meetings of the Board of Managers shall always be open to every 
member of the Association to take part in the proceedings, but to have 10 vote 
upon any question. 


J 


49 



770 


AMERICAN IRON ASSOCIATION. 


ARTICLE IT. 

The funds of the Association shall be at all times subject to the control and dis¬ 
position of the Board of Managers, but they shall have no power or authority to en¬ 
ter into any contract whatever in behalf of the Association, nor are the members to 
be at any time accountable for any contracts made by the Directors, beyond the 
funds in the hands of the-Treasurer. 


article v. 

All persons, firms, or incorporated companies, interested in the manufacture of 
iron in the United States, may become members of the Association upon paying a 
contribution fee annually, in advance, as follows: 


For one charcoal furnace, 

. ten dollars. 

More than one “ 

. twenty 

dollars. 

One mineral coal “ 

. twenty 

44 

More than one “ 

. forty 

u 

One rolling-mill, 

. twenty 

u 

More than one rolling-mill, 

. forty 

44 

All other description of works, 

. five dollars each. 


Provided, that no one individual, firm, or company, shall be required to pay an an¬ 
nual contribution of more than forty dollars. Persons not engaged in the manufac¬ 
ture of iron, but whose pursuits are in harmony with the objects of this Association, 
may be elected members by the Board of Managers, and shall pay an annual contri¬ 
bution of twenty dollars. Honorary or corresponding members may also be elected 
by the Board of Managers. 

All members chosen by the Board shall be elected by ballot, and the affirmative 
vote of two-thirds of the members present shall be necessary to elect. The candi¬ 
dates for election shall be nominated at one stated meeting, and the election take 
place at the next or some subsequent stated meeting. All members elected by the 
Board shall be reported to the next meeting of the Association. 

Any member who refuses the payment of his contribution for one year, shall not 
be entitled to vote. Should payment of the same be omitted for two years, his 
right of membership in the Association shall be forfeited, but he shall not thereby 
be released from the payment of his arrears. The resignation of any member not 
in arrears, shall be accepted by the Board of Managers. 

article vi. 

Firms and incorporated companies shall be entitled to only one vote. Incorpo¬ 
rated companies must be represented by one of their officers, or by a member of 
their Board of Managers, duly appointed for the purpose. 

ARTICLE VII. 

The Board of Managers shall have power to make such By-Laws as may be 
deemed necessary, not inconsistent with this Constitution ; to employ a secretary ; 
and to allow him such compensation as they may think proper. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

Any alteration or amendment in these articles shall be proposed at a stated or 
special meeting of the Association, to be approved by two-thirds of the members 
present. 



CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS. 


771 


BY-LAWS. 

ARTICLE I. 

President. —The President shall preside at the meetings of the Board ; he shall 
sign all orders upon the Treasurer when the accounts shall have been passed by 
the Board ; and shall call special meetings whenever he shall receive a written 
request signed by three members. In his absence, one of the Vice-Presidents shall 
preside, and should neither be present, a chairman pro tern, may be chosen. 

ARTICLE II. 

Treasurer.— It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to receive all the moneys of 
the Association, and to deposit them in the name of the Association, in such insti¬ 
tution as the Board may direct. He shall make no payments without written 
vouchers from the Board. He shall keep accurate accounts of the income and dis¬ 
bursements, and shall exhibit accurate statements of his receipts and payments at 
the stated meetings, and whenever called upon by the Board. He shall, if re¬ 
quired, give bonds for the faithful performance of his trust. 

article hi. 

Secretary.— The Secretary shall keep correct records of all proceedings of the 
Board, subject at all times to the inspection of any of its members. He shall keep 
a roll of the members’ names, and at every meeting note the absentees and also 
those who attend later than the fixed hour of meeting. He shall notify every com¬ 
mittee of its appointment through the chairman within two days, and shall issue 
notices of every special meeting of the Board. He shall attest all orders drawn by 
the Board. He shall have charge of the room of the Association and of all their 
property, except that in charge of the other officers or committees. He shall not 
lend any document or paper of the Board to any member thereof without a receipt. 
He shall act as corresponding secretary and answer all letters addressed to the 
Association ; and open and maintain such correspondence as may tend to advance 
its interests, and keep a record thereof, subject to the direction of the Board. He 
shall acknowledge all donations, and shall notify honorary and corresponding mem¬ 
bers of their election. He shall act as secretary for all standing committees. He 
shall, under direction of the Committee on Statistics, collect statistics, specimens 
for the cabinet, and publications ; and generally devote his time to the promotion 
of the objects of the Association. All bills must be examined and signed by him 
before presentation to the Board, and he shall report at each stated meeting of the 
Board, except when absent on duty. 


ARTICLE IV. 

Meetings. —The stated meetings of the Board shall be held on the evening of the 
second Monday in each month, at eight o’clock. A line of ten cents shall be 
levied on each member who is absent when the hour of meeting arrives, and an 
additional fifteen cents shall be due from each member who does not appear during 
the meeting, except in case of sickness or absence from the city. 

ARTICLE v. 

Order of Business. —The order of business at the meetings of the Board shall 

be as follows : 


AMERICAN IRON ASSOCIATION. 


772 

1. Calling the roll. 

2. Reading minutes of last meeting. 

3. Reports from Secretary and Treasurer. 

4. Reports from Standing Committees. 

5. Reports from Select Committees. 

6. Unfinished business. 

7. New business. 

8. Calling the roll. 

ARTICLE VI. 

Standing Committees. —Standing committees on the following subjects shall be 
nominated by the President or Chairman, and be approved by the Board, viz : 

1. On statistics. 

2. On finauce. 

They shall keep regular minutes of their proceedings, and report them monthly 
to the Board. Select committees may be appointed in any usual manner. 

No committee shall have power to contract any debt unless previously authorized 
by the Board of Managers, and an appropriation made by them. 

No bill shall be paid without having been first passed at a regular meeting of the 
committee incurring the expense, and being certified as correct by the chairman of 
that committee. 














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